Dinah Spritzer
By Dinah Spritzer
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Fast Forward From tefillin to troop training: Meet the Orthodox former IDF soldier on the front lines in Ukraine
(JTA) — As an Orthodox Jewish man, each morning Tzvi Arieli wraps his arm and forehead with tefillin, the black leather straps that connect two small boxes filled with verses from the Torah. But Arieli makes exceptions. “If I need to shoot some Russians, timing is really important. I might not be able to focus…
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Fast Forward Babyn Yar was his backyard. Now this 95-year-old Holocaust survivor has escaped Ukraine after a harrowing ordeal.
(JTA) — Before this month, the last time Evgeny Pavlovskiy left the Kyiv area was during World War II, when his Jewish family hid from the Nazis in Russia’s Ural Mountains. At 95 and suffering from several serious ailments, he was content living alone just two houses away from the entrance to Babyn Yar, where…
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Fast Forward Jewish Ukrainians gear up for fierce Russia fight, alongside the ‘neo-Nazis’ they say Putin is lying about
(JTA) — Konstantyn Batozsky believes he is on a list of so-called “neo-Nazis” to be rounded up “Gestapo-style” and “exterminated” by Russian forces seeking to enter Kyiv. Batozsky, a Jew from eastern Ukraine, said he was informed about the “bounty on his head” by Ukrainian intelligence sources. But as a longtime and avowed Ukrainian nationalist…
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Fast Forward In Dnipro, Orthodox father and son soldiers are ‘ready to kill Russian soldiers’
(JTA) — Until just a few months ago, David Cherkaskyi was finishing a degree in cybersecurity, praying at his Chabad synagogue and posting selfies from his travels across the Jewish world. Now, he’s standing by in his hometown of Dnipro, Ukraine, “ready to kill Russian soldiers.” The 20-year-old Hasidic Jew and his father Asher are…
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