Borscht morale booster

EIGHT Ukrainian refugee families who recently arrived in Sydney received a heartwarming welcome at a Jewish communal cooking session earlier this month, which naturally included borscht beetroot soup.

The morale-boosting event was hosted by Bondi-based Jewish charity Our Big Kitchen (OBK), in partnership with the Zionist Federation of Australia-run Russian-speaking Jewish group Kangarusski.

“The families were made up exclusively of women and children, as the men are prohibited to leave the war-torn country,” Kangarusski Sydney community coordinator Anna Maylis said.

More than 100 participants (some pictured here) came together to cook over 650 meals of borscht, beetroot potato salad, and loaves of challah, enjoy a meal together, and a performance by musicians Mar’yana Sywak, Ilya Bayer, Anatoli Torijinski, and Leo Novikov.

OBK founding director Rabbi Dovid Slavin described the event as “a demonstration of harmony, a warm welcome, a time to relax and enjoy, and prepare meals to support the newly-arrived [Ukrainian] families for the coming weeks.”