Defenders of Ukraine take inspiration from Hanukkah heritage
Joel Gehrke
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saluted “the Jewish community of Ukraine and all the Jews of the world on Hanukkah” in his regular update on the war.
“Those who were outnumbered defeated those who outnumbered them,” Zelensky said in an address. “Light defeated darkness. It will be the same this time. Chag Hanukkah Sameach!”
Zelensky’s message underscored a wider trend of Ukrainian citizens finding consolation in the story of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid monarchy. The commemoration of the ancient war involves the lighting of the menorah over eight days — a doubly resonant ritual given Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian electricity infrastructure in a war that the Kremlin has portrayed as the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
“We are actually now living through the same situation,” Rabbi Mayer Stambler told the Associated Press at a ceremony in Kyiv. “This is a war between darkness and light.”
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The Jewish holiday began as Ukrainian officials raced to recover from an intense bombardment of energy infrastructure around the country.
“Unfortunately, millions of Ukrainians are now suffering from this because millions of people are cut from electricity supplies,” Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Voice of America, a U.S.-government-owned broadcaster, in an interview published Monday. “We have to introduce rolling power cuts in the country to maintain the perfect balance between generation and consumption in the system, and these rolling power cuts, of course, involve millions of our citizens, and this is going on during the winter.”
Those attacks continued Monday, with Ukrainian military officials claiming they intercepted about 30 Iranian-made drones.
“As a result of the attack on the capital, critical infrastructure facilities were damaged,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on social media. “Energy and heating engineers are working to quickly stabilize the situation with energy and heat supply.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the persistent bombardment of Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the midst of a Ukrainian counteroffensive that forced Russian troops into high-profile withdrawals. These attacks are intended “to initiate complete blackout of the system,” as Kudrytskyi put it, in order to instigate a crippling humanitarian crisis.
“They use very clear strategies to inflict as much damage to power grid as possible,” he said. “So they selected attacks on electric grid for this very reason: to inflict as much suffering as possible. And this is probably their last chance to somehow change the situation in the battlefield with the war to make us negotiate with them.”
That strategy has taken a toll — “I am not an energy expert, but it seems to me we are on the edge,” as Ukrainian Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny acknowledged recently — but it also has spurred additional international support.
“I wish for the people of Ukraine all of that which Hanukkah symbolizes,” Israeli Ambassador Michael Brodsky said in Kyiv. “I wish there was light on every Ukrainian house … and I wish you victory.”
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The realization of such good wishes depends on two things, in the Ukrenergo CEO’s telling.
“Well, first we ask for equipment, second equipment, and third equipment. We need a lot of equipment to replace the damages that were made by Russians,” Kudrytskyi said. “We, of course, as a country we need more air defense, which is not a secret, and this is what our political leadership always mention when they talk to their international counterparts. Because as you increase your ability to restore the power grid, you have to decrease their ability to destroy. Because in order to survive this winter, we need to go both ways.”