Dear Friends,

By the time you read the email below from Olha, she will have gotten another $1000 in aid, all because of the generosity of our MHJC family. We are continuing to collect money for Sashko, Olha and Yasya.  Should you wish to contribute, you may do so though our website or by sending a check made payable to MHJC. If you send a check, please make sure to add Ukranian Family Fund on the memo portion of your check. Thank you for your ongoing support. As you can see from her email, corresponding with her also provides much needed emotional support. Should you wish to write to Olha, you can email her at kuprolya@gmail.com

Thank you so much for helping Sashko, Olha and Yasya during this very difficult time in their lives.

"Dear Sharon,

I am really glad to hear about your family, and also about your traditions. Although not all of my family is with me, I am really pleased to read about happiness and peace. It's the thing for which we struggle.

And I also want to wish you happiness with your closest people these days!

I think about your letter and all the time return to our life. We have fractured traditions because of the USSR, and Russia the same. During all of my childhood I felt the strict feeling of loss during celebrations. My parents, and their parents were taught to celebrate only "right" feasts. We needed to grow these traditions after the independence of Ukraine, in 1991. I was a child, though I remember everything. This kind of "construction" of memories and traditions.

Please, feel comfortable about stories of your family life. I read them as a writer, I take pleasure in them.

We stay in Kraków till the New Year. Did I say that we are living in the apartments of well-known Polish-American writer Czesław Miłosz? We are pleased to live in the centre of an old and beautiful city. But I understood here that every other city is interesting to visit as a tourist, but the thing which makes the city "home" is people. I am happy to have "my people" here in Poland. Otherwise, I would go to Kyiv, I guess. Though, my friends and my family in Kyiv live in quite different reality: they google what they should have in their suitcases in case of a nuclear attack. Anyway, we are trying to live our lives, to love and teach our children and to help our Army.

These are the things which keep me strong these days.

Dear Sharon, you wrote that you've sent me money. Thank you and all the kindest people of the Synagogue. Should I have some number to take the money, as it was the previous time?

I wanted to share with a friend of mine, who lost her husband recently. Her husband worked in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he defended our country from 2014. She has two children. This is her story shortly (but in Ukrainian). I just wanted you to know that your money is spent in the right way.

Yours sincerely

Olha"