Members of the Territorial Defense Force stand guard at a check point, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, at the Independence Square in central Kyiv, Ukraine, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Despite the ongoing Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the city’s Jews are celebrating the Purim holiday and publicly reading the Megillat Esther according to Jewish tradition.

Ukraine’s main synagogue is now secured by a private security company and Ukrainian army soldiers, according to Israel’s Walla news, which reported the city’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch has returned to the city after being evacuated two weeks ago.

The security forces, Markovitch told Walla, “sleep with us and eat with us, and we feel safe with them, and are very happy to be in their company.”

“The Rabbi of Lubavitch always recalled the words of the Baal Shem Tov,” he said, referring to the founder of Hasidism, “who recounted a statement from the Talmud according to which whoever reads the Megillah bedayavad [retrospectively] has not fulfilled his obligation. And it’s interpreted as: whoever thinks that the Megillah is a thing of the past is mistaken.”

Referring to the capital of Persia in the Purim story, Markovitch asserted, “Today, we see that the capital Shushan is here, it is Kyiv today. Today, to read the Megillah is a risk. But we are reading the Megillah, not on Zoom, but live.”

Jews, he said, “read the Megillah around the world, and whoever can, they should remember the Jews of Kyiv when they read the Megillah.”

Markovitch said his decision to return to the city was motivated by concern for the city’s Jewish community.

“These are the most distressed people that there can be,” he said. “Jews who can’t go out for various reasons, some of them children, women, or parents of men of conscription age who don’t want to leave them here alone, some of them elderly people, handicapped and sick.”

“I came back in order to do the most banal thing,” Markovitch said: “to protect the lives of those elderly, handicapped, sick; to give them not just food, but to get them lifesaving medicine, which is sorely lacking here, and give them spiritual support.”

“I very much ask for help,” Markovitch said. “Every shekel for the Jews of Kyiv is simply the saving of a life.”