UK envoy in Lviv joins shul on Zoom
THE BRITISH Ambassador to Ukraine joined her north London shul’s service last Friday by Zoom — even singing with the choir, the JC can reveal.
Melinda Simmons appeared visibly moved as Finchley Reform’s Rabbi Deborah Blausten spoke of the world’s need for “messengers of peace, especially this Shabbat”.
The rabbi told the congregation that the service would “make space for a sense of community with Finchley Reform households stretching all the way to Ukraine”.
A long-standing member of the synagogue choir, Ms Simmons joined in the singing, albeit slightly out of sync because of the delay caused by joining remotely from 1,250 miles to the east.
She has remained in Ukraine in defiance of Putin’s invasion. Ms Simmons has been attending services at Finchley Reform for 20 years.
The synagogue’s senior rabbi, Miriam Berger, told the JC: “As her face came onto the screen, people wished her strength. Of course she is in our prayers.”
Earlier this year, Rabbi Berger told the JC that Ms Simmons’s Jewish values “permeated her existence every day”. As the fighting intensifies, the ambassador has relocated from Kyiv to Lviv, where she and her staff are still providing consular services to Britons.
On Monday, she tweeted: “Yes. We are still in #Ukraine. Still carrying out core work. Proud to do so with a great team. Exact location in the city has been secret for fear that she could be a target for the Russians.”
In a series of social media posts she has expressed her deep admiration for Ukraine’s people and disgust at the Russian invasion.
As the war broke out, she posted: “A wholly unprovoked attack on a peaceful country is unfolding. Horrified.
“Just because you’ve prepared and thought about this possibility for weeks and months doesn’t mean it isn’t shocking when it actually happens.”
And last Saturday she wrote: “The determined bravery of the Ukrainian people is astonishing to those who, like Putin himself, have built their vision of the world on a refusal to acknowledge it.”
She added the following day: “The way Ukrainians are resisting Russia’s brutal invasion will change forever the way Ukraine is understood by the world. Has already changed it.”
On Monday, she posted a very recent photo of President Zelensky and defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, both of whom are Jewish. She commented: “Bravery x 2.”
On Tuesday, after Babyn Yar was hit, Ms Simmons tweeted: “A Russian missile hits Babyn Yar memorial park where thousands of Jews were murdered by Nazis. “In case anyone bought Putin’s ‘denazification’ objective, here’s stark staring proof of its sickening hollowness.”