The Atlantic

What Putin’s ‘Denazification’ of Ukraine Really Looks Like

Fleeing Russia’s onslaught, a rabbi leads children from Odessa’s Jewish community through the Carpathian Mountains.
Refugees from Ukraine after crossing the Moldova-Ukrainian border (AFP / Getty)

This is a free edition of Yair Rosenbergs newsletter, Deep Shtetl. Sign up here.

“I once thought that I was a freak,” says Rabbi Refael Kruskal, the vice president of the Jewish community in Odessa, a port city in Ukraine. While many others in the country doubted the prospect of a Russian invasion, Kruskal—the son of a Holocaust survivor—took his cues not from the headlines but from Jewish history. “I had supplies on trucks. I had generators prepared. I said there’s gonna be a rush on gas stations, so I had gas prepared for the buses on the way.”

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
The Legacy of Charles V. Hamilton and Black Power
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. This week, The New York Times published news of the death of Charles V. Hamilton, the
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part

Related Books & Audiobooks