The paranoia of the powerful says that smaller nations can’t be allowed to exist freely amidst a mighty empire.
Jews have known this for millennia. This week is our redemption season leading up to the festival of Passover, when we recall being liberated from slavery in ancient Egypt. We dedicated the month before Passover to thinking about the meaning of freedom and the power of national identity and belonging. Now that the invasion of Ukraine has long reached the second month, Ukrainians have had even more time to consider their horrendous situation.
In the Passover story, Pharoah subjugated the ancient Israelites just for existing as a distinct nation. He justified the unthinkable order to murder every firstborn son with propaganda about the supposed “threat” they posed. Like Pharoah, Vladimir Putin’s hold on reality seems to be either loosening or wilfully skewed, using false accusations of genocide and Nazism as an excuse to bombard innocent civilians. From declaring that the Ukrainian nation does not exist to implying that the fertile lands of Ukraine are his birthright, Putin’s megalomania and obsession with Ukraine spur him on down a murderous path, which we know all too well.
The midrash on Exodus reflects on how Pharaoh reacted in the pause after the second plague. The Torah tells how Moses is asked by Pharaoh for a cease-fire when the frogs descend. As soon as the plague subsides, though, there is a change: “But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart.” The Midrash explains: “This is the way with the wicked: When they are under pressure, they surrender themselves but as soon as the pressure passes they return to their wickedness.” Sadly this insight stands, “bayamim hahem u’vazman hazeh” — in the old days and in the present — the dynamics of tyrants and the futility of attempting a reconciliation seem to be a tragic constant.
In the old days and in the present: Putin’s bombs have soiled the memory of the Holocaust, with a 96-year-old survivor of the camps among the thousands killed. The memorial at Babyn Yar, where the Nazis and their collaborators murdered 33,771 Jews over two days in September 1941, was bombed on 1 March this year. Commemoration there had been forbidden until the 1990s, and now once more the words of the dissident Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko ring true: “Over Babyn Yar there are no monuments.”
The unfolding tragedies show just how perverse Putin’s claims that he is “denazifying” Ukraine are. While this war isn’t the Holocaust, horrific as it is, there are lessons that are still profound. Oppressive pharaohs and dictators have always striven for absolute power by casting certain groups as unworthy or in the way. This time it’s Ukrainians who have been singled out.
When Jews retell the story of the Exodus on Passover, each generation is meant to feel as if we ourselves have also been slaves in Egypt. We are prompted through story and symbolic foods to experience the bitterness of slavery next to the sweetness of freedom. For many British Jews, the millions of refugees escaping Ukraine also remind us of our own ancestors who fled that region from persecution to safety, and of those who weren’t so lucky to leave before the unimaginable devastation of the Holocaust. Our past and our present intermingle, again and again, in the geography and in the deeds that we witness.
I’ve seen immense solidarity as people from all backgrounds sense and recoil at the terror that so many Ukrainians feel as they are sheltering or trapped. One heartening sight is that of residents of neighbouring countries flocking to the border to support refugees on their journeys. Maybe one lesson has been learnt, at least for now, at least by some. At home, widespread calls for further sanctions and for accepting refugees tells me that many people are not switching off when they turn on the news. It is heartening that British people are demanding a more welcoming policy towards refugees. Our community has raised its voice and opened its homes. Having seen tyrants rise again and again, we have an opportunity to create redemptive strength in Ukraine’s moment of need, starting with how we welcome “the stranger”, the refugee, into our own homes. We should not let up the pressure on the government to be more generous and more efficient in administrating the entry of refugees.
Brutality and aggression must never prevail. This message of Passover applies to all of us, of all faiths, and none. On Passover, I will again be reminded that the Israelites, my ancestors, were not wiped out. We are still here, and so will the Ukrainian people be for many years to come.
