When Divine Providence Meets Human Courage: The Halfons' Mission to Save Ukrainian Jews

Kharkiv, February 24, 2022. 5:47 AM.

The first explosion shattered the pre-dawn darkness as Rabbi Yitzchak Halfon reached for his phone. His WhatsApp status had been ready for years, words from Megillat Esther that would prove prophetic: "And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for such a time as ... this?!"

Within minutes, the 45-year-old educator was fleeing the city he'd called home for twelve years, his Ukrainian-born wife Hodayah beside him, their children in the backseat, $700 in cash their only resource. Behind them, Kharkiv, just twenty miles from the Russian border—erupted into war.

But what felt like defeat was actually the first step in an extraordinary rescue mission.

For weeks, Yitzchak had been filling his car with gasoline daily. Stockpiling medical supplies. Urging fellow rabbis to prepare for the unthinkable. "I felt that there was going to be an attack, but everybody else thought I was crazy," he would later recall.

His paranoia, they called it. His prescience, history would record.

The Halfons had come to Ukraine in 2010 as Jewish educators, planning a one-year mission that stretched into fourteen. They'd raised five children in this complicated country. Hodayah, born Nadia, had only discovered her Jewish identity at eleven. She would become a woman who would help shepherd thousands home.

When the missiles began falling, they were already on the road to Moldova.

At the crossing, Ukrainian officials nearly conscripted their 18-year-old son, Michael, under the emergency draft that trapped all men aged 18-60. An hour and a half of desperate negotiation. A border policewoman's unexpected compassion. A family allowed to pass intact.

In that moment, providence revealed its hand. The young man they nearly lost would become integral to the rescue mission that was about to be born.

From Refugees to Rescuers

Safe in Moldova, the Halfons' phones erupted with desperate messages. Friends, students, community members, all trapped in what had become a war zone overnight. The impossible question echoed in their car: How do you save anyone with $700?

"We still didn't have any solutions; we acted on pure faith," Yitzchak would explain. "From my point of view, this was the reason we had come to Ukraine all those years earlier."

From their car, still fleeing, they began coordinating WhatsApp groups. Making frantic calls. Seeking buses, drivers, anyone willing to enter the inferno they'd just escaped. Some drivers refused, too dangerous. Others lacked fuel. The Halfons persisted on faith alone.

What started as improvised desperation has become Kanfei Emunah - Wings of Faith. More than five thousand three hundred Jews rescued and brought to safety. A network spanning the Jewish Agency, Israeli consulates, humanitarian organizations worldwide. A lifeline operating when all others have withdrawn.

The Milner couple: Elderly, stranded on the fifth floor of an abandoned Kharkiv building. He blind, she bedridden, their neighborhood facing imminent capture. The Halfons orchestrated an extraordinarily dangerous extraction, pulling them to safety moments before a direct missile strike obliterated their building.

Yaakov: A Jewish father, sixty years old, terminal diagnosis, discharged from a hospital that could no longer help. Russian cyber warfare had locked Ukraine's medical systems, erasing patient records. Through extraordinary effort, documents were secured. A last-minute rescue was executed.

But it's the story of Alexei that haunts. Thirty-one, hidden in his apartment for months, terrified of the "meat grinder", Ukraine's brutal reality where deployment to frontlines can mean death within days. A neighborhood police officer betrayed his location. Armed men broke down his door at night and dragged him away. For days, his family heard nothing.

This is the daily terror facing Jewish men throughout Ukraine today. Mobile draft patrols still hunt men from bus stops to apartment stairwells, while drone strikes knock out electricity with little warning.

A Winter of Despair

The numbers tell part of the story: over 1,300 healthcare facilities destroyed. By early September, nighttime temperatures in eastern Ukraine can already dip toward freezing, and many elderly Jews face the first cold nights with no reliable heat or power. Entire buildings without heat or electricity. Children malnourished.

But numbers cannot capture the human reality. Doctors discharging patients without treatment. The elderly abandoned by overwhelmed systems. Daily drone strikes targeting whatever infrastructure remains. The systematic hunting of military-age men on every street corner.

Well into the war’s fourth year, conditions have worsened exponentially. Russian forces intensify attacks as their own losses mount. An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Jews remain in Ukraine, and roughly 120,000 to 150,000 people in total are still eligible for aliyah. Many are trapped by regulations that forbid military-age men from leaving.

The Soul's Journey Home

Physical rescue is only the beginning. At transit points, the Halfons maintain more than safety, they preserve Jewish life. Shabbat meals in refugee centers. Candles flickering in the darkness of displacement. Tefillin wrapped around arms that may be touching sacred objects for the first time.

"We're planning activities in Israel to bring rescued Jews closer to their tradition," Yitzchak explains. "Building upon their initial encounters with us when we helped them transition from refugee status to new immigrant status."

They understand their mission in cosmic terms: not just saving lives, but returning Jewish souls to their people, their heritage, their Land. Physical rescue goes hand in hand with spiritual rejuvenation.

Standing Alone

When international attention shifted, particularly after October 7th thrust Israel into its own crisis, the Halfons remained. Major organizations reduced operations. Although many Jews managed to escape in the early stages of the war, thousands are still trapped or at risk across Ukraine. The Halfons became virtually the sole entity consistently rescuing Jews from Ukrainian territory.

"I have watched every relief group come and go. Kanfei Emuna is the one corridor that never closed," writes Rabbi Pinchas Zaltzman, Chief Rabbi of Moldova, in a letter dated July 2024.

"Every passing day determines the fate of additional Jews struggling to survive within this war's chaos," Hodayah emphasizes with quiet urgency. "We cannot abandon them. Not the elderly Jews enduring Ukrainian winter without heat, not the men seized from their homes, not the children awaiting rescue."

Rabbi Yitzchak now splits his time between Israel and Moldova, working alongside Michael, the son whose border crossing sparked their calling. Hodayah coordinates from Israel while working in education, also supporting Ukrainian evacuees who reached safety only to find themselves in a second war after October 7th.

The Divine Calculus

Each evacuation represents more than rescue, it's family reunited, future preserved, hope sustained against impossible darkness. These aren't historical accounts but today's reality: Jews facing life-threatening circumstances with diminishing options and fading hope.

The Halfons' mission continues because it must. Born from that prophetic post on social media, sustained by unwavering faith, it operates on the principle that ordinary people can be called to extraordinary purpose "la'eit kazot."

In a world fatigued by competing crises, the Jews of Ukraine need what they have always needed: fellow Jews who remember that every life is a universe.

The Call That Cannot Wait

The war continues. The need intensifies. The mission endures.

Right now, elderly Jews huddle without heat in Ukrainian buildings. Men hide in terror from conscription squads. Children wait for rescue that may never come. The Halfons work around the clock, often the only hope between life and death.

Kanfei Emuna's founders will visit Los Angeles this Elul to meet community partners from Persian, Israeli, and Chabad circles and to share first-hand accounts of ongoing rescues.

This is not a story from the past, it's happening today, this moment, as you read these words.

And you can help.

Before Rosh Ha-Shanah, help move the next family from danger to safety.

Visit kanfei-emuna.org or WhatsApp +1-973-277-0102.

Rescue costs vary by route and medical needs, every gift counts.