After Harrowing Three-Day Journey, Refugees Arrive in Israel Minutes Before Shabbos

ISRAEL (VINnews) — Last Friday, a Chabad couple, accompanied by their two young children, and nine others fleeing Ukraine, arrived in Israel just minutes before the onset of Shabbos, after a harrowing three day journey.

Mendel Borodkin, originally from Crown Heights, and his Ukrainian wife Rivka, work for Beis Hannah, a Jewish girls’ seminary in Dnipro.

Six of the teenage seminary girls, a 25-year-old dorm counselor, and the parents of one of the girls, joined the Borodkins, planning to remain in Israel for the duration of the war

On Tuesday March 1, the group began a frenzied journey from Dnipro. They headed to Odesa, then planned to travel to Moldova and Romania, and catch a flight to Israel Friday morning.

At the border of Moldova the group ran into complications. The youngest seminary girl, aged 14, had a Ukrainian identity card but no passport. She got a refugee pass to enter Moldova, but had no way to get into Romania or Israel.

The group went to an Israeli embassy in Chișinău and were told to wait, with time running out before the flight.

Then luckily, the former Israeli ambassador to Ukraine, Joel Lion, who is frum, passed Mr. Borodkin outside on his way into the embassy. Mr. Borodkin recognized him from his visits to Dnipro’s shul. Mr. Lion intervened and despite the girl not having any Jewish identifying papers, quickly processed an entry pass into Israel.

At that point it was Thursday evening, and the group somehow found a bus to Romania.

Mendel said, “We boarded the bus. The driver thought there was no way we’d make the plane. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. We’d barely eaten or slept, we’d been carrying backpacks for two days and we just wanted to get to our destination.”

At the Romanian border, seven coach buses were in line ahead of them. That is typically a six hour wait.

“I explained our hurry to one of the guards, who didn’t understand a word I was saying,” Mr. Borodkin said. “But he read the worry on my face, made a phone call, and got us through in 45 minutes.”

They made it to the airport less than two hours before takeoff. They arrived in Israel at around 2 p.m. Friday, thinking they were home free.

But some of the group were detained for questioning, and the clock was ticking before Shabbos.

“And then something amazing happened,” Mr. Borodkin said. “The senior-most border guard looked at the dorm counselor and asked, “Is your father Daniel, from Kishinev?”

“Yes,” she replied, “he helps the rabbi!”

Somehow the guard knew her family and allowed everyone through. Miraculously, the Borodkins made it to Kfar Chabad just minutes before shkia.