Dozens of Jewish soldiers and civilians, together with many non-Jewish Ukrainians, gathered Thursday at Kyiv’s Brodsky Central Synagogue to bid farewell to the son of a prominent rabbi who died on the front weeks after being drafted into the Ukrainian army.
Anton Samborsky, 32, was the adopted son of Moshe Azman, one of two men who claim the title of chief rabbi of Ukraine.
Speaking at the synagogue service — which was also attended by Israel’s ambassador to Kyiv, Michael Brodsky — Azman drew attention to the tragic irony of how Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin justifies falsely as an operation to free Ukraine from a Nazi junta, is killing many members of its national minorities, including Jews and Russians.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine said in a statement that it has assisted in the burial of 47 Jewish soldiers fallen in combat since the start of the war. Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the federation’s chair, Rabbi Mayer Stambler, estimated the number of Ukrainian Jewish soldiers killed in action to be in the hundreds.
