Keeping the Faith: During this Holy Season, We Must Not Look Away from Events in Ukraine

This essay appears courtesy of the Columbus Dispatch, where this essay first appeared on April 18, 2022.

We cannot bear to look, but we not dare look away.

This is our reaction, over and over, to the images of shattered lives, flattened homes and unspeakable cold-bloodedness in Ukraine.

We are sickened to watch the suddenly homeless child wandering the streets with a colorful backpack he shouldered carefree to kindergarten only weeks ago. To see images of empty strollers parked in the plaza outside a bombed theater, each one a symbol of one lost innocent soul. To learn that more than 50 humans were bombed and murdered while standing on a train platform waiting to be transported to a safer place.

How could this be happening? What upturned world are we living in? Has history taught us nothing?

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Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson is president of The Wexner Foundation. She is married to Rabbi Misha Zinkow, retired senior rabbi at Temple Israel who is now Journey Builder for Makor Educational Journeys.