Ukraine’s only woman rabbi says justice will overcome Putin’s brutality

Julia Gris said 'the world stands with Ukraine' as the country stands united against the Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s only woman rabbi has said that justice will prevail over the Russian forces who are attempting to advance towards her home city.

Julia Gris told Metro.co.uk that her heart is in the southern port of Odessa, where she led a congregation of around 200 people before the invasion.

Rabbi Gris is currently in Germany, where she has continued to lead services via Zoom for people in Ukraine and those who have been displaced abroad.

Her progressive congregation is part of a Jewish community of almost 45,000 people in the city that has been largely displaced by the invasion.

Rabbi Gris and her 19-year-old daughter now find themselves part of a mass exodus from Ukraine that has led to 3.6 million people leaving for neighbouring countries, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

With daily reports of atrocities and Vladimir Putin widely accused of war crimes, Rabbi Gris referred to the Torah, the first part of the Hebrew bible.

‘In our tradition of Judaism, one of the main themes in the Torah is of justice,’ she said. ‘We have a line saying, “justice, justice shall you pursue” and now justice is on the side of Ukraine. All the world supports Ukraine, to build an independent, united and democratic county.

‘In the Jewish tradition it is said that each Jew is responsible for the others, but I would like to widen that to say each person in the world is responsible for others. And the world is responsible for Ukraine.’

The faith leader, 45, is a Russian citizen but lived in Odessa for the past 22 years and had adopted Ukraine as her homeland.

Holding a Russian passport, having been born in the former Soviet Union, makes it difficult for her to return with border controls, checkpoints and security regimes under tense wartime conditions.

Odessa, which holds strategic value. has nevertheless united across language and faith lines as residents prepare for a Russian assault that could entail the type of heavy bombardment deployed on besieged Mariupol further to the east.

Rabbi Gris and her daughter, Izolda, were on holiday in Lviv, to the west of Ukraine, when the invasion began 29 days ago.

On the first day of the attack they joined crowds on a journey that involved a 30km, two-day walk to the border with Poland, before making their way to the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany. They are not the first in their family to become refugees, with Rabbi Gris’s grandfather having fled Poland at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Ordained a rabbi at Leo Baeck College in London, where she has friends and colleagues who are supporting her, she now plans to move to the UK with a sponsored visa through the British government’s humanitarian pathway for those fleeing the war.

‘I will not go back to Ukraine because I have a Russian passport,’ Rabbi Gris said. ‘I was never oppressed in Ukraine and the country is my house, my home, but I do understand the Ukrainian antipathy towards Russian people.

‘I will try to get a new life and find a new congregation to lead, probably in the UK, because I left everything behind in Ukraine.

‘My heart, my work and my community is still in Odessa.’

Rabbi Gris spoke as a UK intelligence update showed Russian forces were attempting to circumvent the city of Mykolaiv, 75 miles to the east, on a drive towards the heavily fortified seaport.

Odessa, which had a population of around a million, was shelled by the Russian navy on Monday and defence forces are preparing for a possible amphibious assault from the Black Sea.

Barbed wire, sandbags and metal tank obstacles have broken up the charm of the beaches and boulevards.

Rabbi Gris, who is with two members of the Shirat Ha-Yam congregation – the name means ‘sound of the sea’ in Hebrew – is among Russian speakers who are now resolutely united against the invaders.

‘The Russian president said they would give freedom to Russian people in Ukraine, but we were already free, and Odessa is a Ukrainian city,’ she said.

‘There is a lot of tension in Odessa as the nightmare of the war heads there, but people are united to protect the city and to protect the country.

‘The situation really shows the kind of people we have around us in Ukraine, I have never seen the country so united and I am really proud of how the people are helping each other. The Jewish communities have been active in all the cities across Ukraine, for all people, to organise evacuation transport and provide material and financial aid.

‘I have been continuing to lead prayer services through Zoom just to give people a feeling of a stable situation to allow the congregations to pray together and bring those inside Ukraine and those who have left the chance to see and support each other.’

According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, nearly 200,000 Jews lived in Ukraine before the invasion triggered the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War.

The organisation, whose workers are on the frontlines, has helped to rescue thousands of people, including an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Rabbi Gris’s testimony shows the cosmopolitan society that is being devastated by the Kremlin’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine.

Her words also speak to a fierce resistance movement that Western military analysts say has led to Russian forces being ‘utterly stalled’ and even driven back around Kyiv in the north.

The Kremlin is likely to be seeking to mobilise reservists and conscripted manpower after suffering thousands of casualties, according to an update by the UK Ministry of Defence today.

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