Interim Plans and Guiding Principles

DONATE TO OUR UKRAINIAN REFUGEE FUND

Beit Polska/Poland Progressive Jewish Renewal To Support Ukrainian War Refugees

SHORT-TERM/IMMEDIATE TERM PLANS:

Numbers

Well over 1.5 million people from Ukraine have arrived in Poland since 2014. Another 1.5 people have crossed into Poland since the war began. Now there may be as many as 3 million people from Ukraine and large mass gathering near Lviv, Ukraine, hoping to return to their homes.
Poland may end up being the host to a population that is as much as 10% of her population. We want to help refugees but recognize that this will cause strains on the Polish social and government systems that are already overtaxed by the pandemic.

Ukrainians in Krakow shelter

Housing – Immediate Short-Term Help

Presently, many people with spare rooms and apartments are participating with the Airbnb organization which has suspended the costs for these rooms and apartments. A plan to subsidize people is not yet in place.
Volunteers from Beit Polska and many others are transporting people from the border to these rooms. They collect them from the border and feed them. Many of the rooms are in private homes. Many of our members are hosting people.
Where we can, on an ad hoc basis, we are using our donated funds to supplement petrol charges and food expenses for refugees. Many companies are providing petrol costs.
Ukrainians in the Western part of Ukraine around Lviv (Lemberg/Lvov) are receiving refugees from the Eastern part of Ukraine. We are receiving requests from them for food packages. We will respond as best we can with food packages or vouchers. Again, this is ad hoc but we are endeavoring to keep good records.

Need to Proceed With Caution – Volunteers, Clothes, and Winterized Clothing

Volunteers who speak Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish might be a help at this time if they have needed specialties. We are seeking funds for Ukrainian
speaking psychologists who specialized in trauma.
We are skeptical about sending clothes from the US. We are supporting one exception of person bringing women’s business wear and children’s clothes. Person is arriving March 16, 2022

MID-TERM PLANS:

Beit Polska is involved in funding the opening of a daycare center for Ukrainian children so that their mothers can go out to find work, and to settle affairs. More details to follow.
Coincidentally, Beit Warzsawa (the Warsaw-based congregation of Beit Polska) has been holding Friday night services in the Ukrainian Cultural Center (near the Polin museum) for the last few months and we know the Ukrainians who manage the Center.
Other services that we will help fund include a Shabes hot-meal, and psychological support for traumatized children and their parents. One American child psychologist is donating an app for addressing issues of trauma through animation. It is culturally neutral enough for parents and children (who are pre-readers) to address together.
We are in touch with existing Polish special needs institutions to support them creating additional capacity.
A school for autistic children agreed to add a couple of Ukrainian-speaking qualified teachers and open 15 slots. (Help being extended now, $5000.00 grant but more is needed)
BEIT POLSKA and its support group FRIENDS OF JEWISH RENEWAL IN POLAND are Progressive Jewish organizations committed to helping everyone, but it is also important to connect with Jews.
We have a hotline that we are setting up. We are organizing our Shabbat-In-A-Bag with Challah, battery-run Shabbat candles, juice, and a voucher for a drug store (like Rosmann) or grocery store (like Zabke). If a Shabbat-in-a-Bag ends up in the hands of Ukrainian Gentile, the cross-cultural and religious message will be clear (Bread, Salt, and a drink). ($1000 worth of basic materials Lviv Progressive Group)
Yes, we are planning a concert to raise funds and focus attention with Polish and Ukrainian Progressive Jews.
There are small groups in Polish civil society and individuals who will need our support to continue their initial generosity over the long marathon that we are facing. Beit Polska can be a bridge to people to address the immediate pressing crush of refugees.
Donations to support Beit Polska’s work with refugees and to support Beit Polska can be made here.
Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland, PO 5438, Beverly Hills, CA 90209
We are reaching out to Ukrainian Jews through their Rabbis – Rabbi Dukhvoney in Kiev (currently in Haifa) and Julia Gris from Odessa (Currently in Warsaw.) We are also fostering the work of soon-to-be rabbi, Miriam Klimowa. Miriam grew up in our movement in Lviv. She studied for her BA and MA in Poland in Hebrew studies and is now a third-year Rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Here is the prayer she offered at the Knesset in Hebrew, Ukrainian, and Russian last week.

DONATE TO OUR UKRAINIAN REFUGEE FUND

Sustaining Interest and Effective Activism Among Jews and Everyone Else

LONG TERM PLANS:

We are in touch with many experienced activists who are organizing in Poland. I mention only one, Bogdan Bialek, since he is featured in the documentary Beit Polska helped produce. The documentary follows his efforts to help Poles confront aspects of their dark past. The “issue of the dark past” is a barrier to acting to help now! You might consider scheduling a viewing and discussion of the film to get people prepared to help. Watch Bogdan’s Journey here.
Using the webinar Freighted Legacies: The Culture and History of Jewish Interactions in Poland format we are planning a webinar with the tentative title Poland, Russia, & Ukraine – The Challenges of This Moment for Jews – Addressing Trauma – present and past. The upcoming program with Dr. Eliyana Adler schedule for March 20, 2022. Register here.
My blog post, Refugees Then and Now, introduces some key issues informed by reading Dr. Adler.
Dr. David Myers curated a prescient series of four scholars in Eastern European Jewish history. The brief essays are collected under the title: The Ironies of History: The Ukraine Crisis through the Lens of Jewish History. (3/9/22 David Myers, The Jewish Quarterly Review)
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked and perplexed the world. This special two-part episode of Then & Now, prepared by UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, features two outstanding historical observers: Benjamin Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and J. Arch Getty.” Then & Now: Ghosts of the Past in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine (informant David Myers) Conversations with Historians Benjamin Nathans and Arch Getty