Five Jewish couples got married last week at a synagogue in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, in what a local Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi said was Ukrainian Jewry’s largest group wedding ceremony in years.
The newlyweds comprised three older couples who had already been married for many years through a civil union, but had never had a Jewish religious wedding, Rabbi Jonahtan Markovitch, the director of the Beith Menachem Jewish Community Center, where the weddings took place, told JNS on Monday.
The remaining two couples were of younger community members who had planned to have a Jewish wedding but whose plans were delayed following the February 2022 invasion of Russia into Ukraine, which triggered an ongoing war.
The oldest groom, 92-year-old Natan Medvedev, joked before the chuppah—the cloth canopy under which a Jewish couple stands during their wedding ceremony—that he “wasn’t sure whether he’s ready to commit to married life just yet,” Markovitch recalled. Natan and Rima Medvedev have been living together for more than 60 years.
The timing of the weddings, which took place at Beit Menachem on May 6, was planned because it closely followed Lag B’Omer. Many observant Jews do not marry in the period between the second night of Passover and Lag B’Omer, which this year fell on May 5.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced a ceasefire for May 8-9, ahead of Victory Day celebrations on Saturday.
One of the elderly couples kept the shards of broken glass, which the groom broke under the chuppah, said Jonahtan Markovitch, whose father, Ariel, is the chief rabbi of Kyiv.
“The couple asked in advance not to throw away the broken glass so they’d have a souvenir,” Markovitch recalled.
The other elderly couples were Alexander and Inna Zaitzev and Michael and Tamara Gorni.
The elderly grooms were a bit concerned ahead of breaking the glass by stomping on it, a custom which signifies mourning over the Jewish Temple’s destruction.
“The elderly gentlemen weren’t sure whether they had the force to smash it. We agreed they’d take the bride’s hand when they stomped, as a symbol of their bond but, frankly, also for balance,” the rabbi said.
Serving as bridesmaids and best men were young Jews planning to get married next year, he said. The dozens of people attending the ceremony “were very aware of how special the event is, and many toasted for peace, expressing the wish that the weddings would help bring it about,” he said.
Jewish religious weddings were rare in Ukraine when it still belonged to the Soviet Union. Kyiv had about 100,000 Jews when the war broke out in 2022, Markovitch said. Currently, the Beit Menachem community center “is in contact with just a few thousand Jews living here,” he added.
He noted that millions of non-Jewish Ukrainians left the country following the outbreak of war and that “many Ukrainian Jews also did so.”
However, many Jews from the east of Ukraine, which has come under very frequent attacks by Russia, have moved to Kyiv, strengthening Jewish life in the capital despite the departure of many thousands of former members, Markovitch said.
