In the Nick of Time

David was born and bred in Mariupol, an industrial city just 37 miles from the Russian border. His family, like most of Mariupol’s Jewish families, wasn’t religious to begin with, but became closer to Yiddishkeit through Chabad, and through David’s own education in the Chabad school system. His mother, a supermarket manager, and his brother joined him on his religious journey; his father worked in the Azovstal steel plant before it was seized at the end of May, marking the Russian capture of the coastal city.

“Rabbi Cohen transported us to a new reality, showing us the beauty inherent in Judaism,” David says of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen, the city’s Chabad shaliach.

While his mother was worried about him going out in public with a yarmulke and tzitzis, David discovered that people were more curious than antagonistic. He would engage people who barely knew they were Jewish in meaningful discussions, and even encouraged several grown men to undergo bris milah.

“One of them told me, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to enter the covenant of Avraham Avinu here in Mariupol, after years when I didn’t dare tell anyone that I was a Jew,’ ” David says.