The War in Ukraine

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his views:

The war in Ukraine hits close to home. I was a refugee the first four years of my life following my birth in Kazakhstan (USSR) in 1945, and my late father was a Russian soldier defending Leningrad and Moscow. My 102-year-old Israeli mom who died recently in Israel was a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor. My wife and I travelled in Ukraine with its vast Jewish past in 1991, where we lost so many family members during the Holocaust, including at Babi Yar. It is hard to fathom that the historic and beautiful landscape with a population yearning to be Western is being obliterated before our eyes.

These searing events--an invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces who obey the absolute authority of Russian President Vladimir Putin--are beyond shocking. Who would have imagined that once more, following WWII and the Holocaust, we would witness an eruption of such magnitude in the heart of Europe, with the evil design to seize a newly democratic nation of 40 million people in an ill-begotten scheme to restore the collapsed Soviet Union and/or revive the preceding Russian Imperial Empire? What is the impetus behind Putin's plot to charge forward with uncontrolled rage and reckless impunity despite a dire outcome for all?

Perhaps it is a case of over-confidence that he could literally get away with mass murder with little opposition from a world community, acceding to his past mischief in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria (Remember Aleppo!), Crimea and Donbas. He's gambled that his saber rattling with a nuclear arsenal would result in finger pointing while avoiding detrimental consequences to his megalomaniacal dream of reordering the world order through disorder with total disregard for human life and immense suffering for millions of young and old, who are now homeless refugees. He, whose family was personally impacted by the inhumane siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in WWII, shows no mercy for a vast civilian population with close cultural and fraternal bonds that already had experienced Adolf Hitler's similar approach. Putin shows uncontrolled impulses of divine grandeur and sick grandiosity. The global community hopefully apprehensively watches, with the notable exception of the Russians who are deprived of the truth, fed by their government's fake news.

Let us contemplate that Hitler could have been stopped early on if democratic nations had the common sense and necessary guts to confront him early. Jewish leaders appealed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, their sainted New Deal president, only to be turned away dismissively and misleadingly with false promises that all would be well, but first Nazi Germany had to be defeated. By the time the United States got involved it was too late for 6 million Jews--two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of the total Jewish people, including a million and a half children, along with millions of others. Delayed response to fateful danger by democracies that tend to be slow and uncertain in decision-making and extra cautious about bloodletting of their own and others, turns ever costly with a commensurate rising price. It is humanity's tragic pitfall that dictators possess the nerve and verve to launch unprovoked attacks even as democracies become impotent at critical crossroads rather than calling for determined and quick action to avert monumental destruction.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who ironically and instructively happens to be Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, is pleading for his country's independent existence and survival through more aid and we should fully assist him. To claim that the United States and NATO members have limitations in doing so because the victim does not belong to NATO is immoral and short-sighted. I suggest that Ukraine's defeat would serve to hasten another colossal disaster for Europe and the democratic world, with Putin further emboldened to continue violating others more vulnerable than Ukraine, whose resistance to the onslaught is an exemplary response we can all be inspired by. Zelenskyy has emerged, despite being laughed at given his comedian's background, as a world statesman with Winston Churchill's heroic aura. The Jewish War Veterans of the United States designated Zelenskyy as Honorary Patron. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin. Let justice prevail with our indispensable help!

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is founder of Temple Lev Tikvah in Virginia Beach.

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