VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Friday night at 7:30 p.m., The Church of the Holy Apostles in Virginia Beach held a special service for the people of Ukraine.
Organizers of the event say that support was strong following the invasion, but as time has gone on, there's been less urgency to help. This is why there was a service Friday night in hopes of bringing together a community to pray for peace on earth, especially in Europe.
Rabbi Israel Zomberman, who hosted the service, says his mom is a survivor of the Holocaust who at the time was living in Ukraine.
Zomberman says it's during the festival of lights that the Jewish community remembers an important lesson.
"That one candle at a time, that we can bring about radical change in the darkness surrounding us. Never to give up is really the Jewish story," says Zomberman.
Rabbi Zomberman worries that more than 70 years later, history could very well repeat itself.
"It's not learned from the lessons of the Holocaust we have had other genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia. Now in 2022, this tragedy in the heart of Europe," Zomberman said.
Zomberman says those teaching have fallen on deaf ears over the years.
"There are those who deny the holocaust. Can you imagine? Those same people deny that the innocent people of Ukraine aren't suffering right now," he said.
On one of the last nights of Hannukah, the service will be keeping Ukraine in heart and mind.
"Because of my Holocaust background, I'm so sensitive to the need to support those who call upon us early on not to wait too long and the tragedy of the Holocaust was compounded the world did not reach to us and when they reached to us 6 millions of us 3.5 million children were gone already," Zomberman said.
Rabbi Zomberman says what's happened in Ukraine is a painful reminder of what can happen if a call for help isn't answered and that it should never be ignored, especially during the holidays.
