KYIV, Ukraine – It was a stunning picture: a bearded rabbi in a bullet-proof vest over his tall, slammed into the ground for cover as shells thundered all around him.
video snapshot The moment Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman came under fire while on a humanitarian mission that flooded southern Ukraine on June 8, it was viewed more than 1.5 million times on Twitter. He put the spotlight back on Ukraine’s chief rabbi, whose fame predates that moment and his humanitarian efforts since Russia’s all-out invasion.
“People recognize me,” said the rabbi, eyes shining from his office in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, one afternoon.
Rabbi Azman, 57, got into action when Russia invaded in February 2022, working to help evacuate Jewish Ukrainians and recording pleas for help and stop the war. He said that the bed still made up in his office in the Brodsky Synagogue in Kiev is evidence of the severity of those early days. The rabbi initially worked even during Shabbat, the traditional day of rest, and began filming video messages that went to great lengths.
We are now in Kherson, trying to evacuate people … They miraculously survived. Details later pic.twitter.com/oHcKcTcw0h
– Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Azman (RabbiUkraine) June 8, 2023
His role as chief rabbi has particular resonance in a war that President Vladimir Putin has falsely claimed is about “defaming” Ukraine, a country whose current president is Jewish and whose Jewish community has historically suffered persecution.
The Rabbi, who was born in Leningrad, immigrated to Israel in the 1980s to escape the former Soviet Union. After marrying a Ukrainian woman, he came to Ukraine in the early 1990s to help children affected by the Chernobyl disaster and later led the rehabilitation of the main synagogue in Kiev.
When Russian-backed fighters waged war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Rabbi Azman helped evacuate civilians from the fighting. Later he founded a village on the outskirts of Kiev he named Anatevka – like the fictional shtetl in the Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof” – for displaced Jewish families.
The rabbi’s work has earned him national honors. Pictures of him shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other notable people cover a wall in his office.
But some of his prominent connections sometimes overshadowed his work.
He has been an outspoken supporter of Donald J. Trump and has a longstanding relationship with Rudolph Giuliani, whose attempts to persuade the Ukrainian government to open investigations he believes will benefit Mr. Trump were central to the former president’s impeachment inquiry. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman – associates of Mr. Giuliani who were convicted of campaign finance violations – were at one point Board of Directors For the US-based Rabbi’s Friends of Anativka Charity.
When asked about the saga, Rabbi Azman became spirited, insisting he had no interest in politics.
“I don’t vote in America,” he said, adding: “I work for Ukraine.”
The rabbi asserted that he was simply a “quiet man” trying to reach a wide audience to support his humanitarian efforts, which he says have cost millions, according to him. He considers his work to be less of an “obligation”, work he has taken to Kherson to help respond to the floods and draw attention to the devastation.
Although he no longer works on Shabbat, the rabbi maintains a busy schedule and posts frequent updates on social media about aid efforts and Russian atrocities. One afternoon, he greeted an ambulance evacuee to Anativka.
Many people wonder why he remains in Ukraine despite the risks, he said.
“I thank God he put me at the right time and the right place to be able to save people and help people 24/7,” he said.
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