Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch, the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Chabad Lubavitch emissary continues leading the local Jewish community through ongoing Russian missile and drone bombardments. A massive, unrelenting Russian air campaign has targeted the capital throughout September and October 2026, explicitly aiming to cripple its infrastructure and make the city unlivable ahead of the winter season.
Immune to all fears, Rav Markovitch does not give up on keeping the Jewish community active, cohesive and offering daily prayers. He mobilized a large-scale relief operation—distributing food, bottled water, clothing, medicine, and essentials to both Jews and non-Jews in need.
During a brief visit to Israel in early March 2026, Rabbi Markovitch was stranded when Operation "Roaring Lion" launched and Ukrainian airspace closed; he actively participated in Purim celebrations and community guidance remotely via Zoom while overseeing the distribution of mishloach manot and care packages to local families and soldiers.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day in April 2026, he spoke with The Media Line regarding personal and communal memory under daily wartime pressure, emphasizing a commitment to resilience rather than living strictly inside trauma.
On his visits to Porto, Rabbi Markovitch visits all the emblematic places of the local Jewish community, with one exception: the Holocaust museum, as he has deep and traumatic family connections to WWII. For him, Holocaust remembrance is not an abstract historical concept but a "daily reality" rooted in personal family tragedy.
While growing up in Israel, Markovitch lived in the same building as his maternal grandmother, who was an Auschwitz survivor. He recalled seeing the identification number tattooed onto her arm, though she heavily avoided speaking about her experiences to shield him from the horror.
His paternal grandfather’s family suffered a brutal fate locally in Ukraine. Rather than being deported to a camp, they were locked inside a wooden building in their own village and burned alive by their neighbors. His grandfather was later captured and sent to Auschwitz, surviving the camp to rebuild his life after losing his first wife and three daughters.
Rabbi Markovitch has stated that living with this traumatic legacy directly shaped his conviction that Jewish communities must be strong enough to prevent such horrors from recurring, heavily influencing his decision to move back to Ukraine to rebuild Jewish life.
