Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor Hosts Ukrainian Family Seeking Refuge From War

One of the tenets of the Jewish faith is “to welcome the stranger,” said Ron Klausner, the co-president of Temple Adas Israel, and the Sag Harbor congregation has taken that idea to heart by agreeing to sponsor a Ukrainian refugee family.

The family, a mother and her two sons, one a preteen, the other a teenager, plus a pet cat and dog, arrived in the village on November 3, after what Klausner said a long journey that began in Poland, where they had been staying temporarily, and included a 12-hour train ride to Frankfurt, Germany, where their nine-hour flight to New York was delayed for several hours, and another five-hour wait in a windowless room until they cleared customs.

“They were totally exhausted,” said Klausner, who greeted the family with another member of Temple Adas Israel’s Welcome Circle, James Dwoskin. When the family emerged from the mass of passengers arriving at the international terminal, “we all broke down and cried,” Klausner added.

Although the family has been safely placed temporarily in the home of members of the congregation who are away from Sag Harbor until spring, and the boys have begun to attend area schools, Klausner said he did not want to identify the family yet so as to give them time to find their bearings in the village.

“They have been traumatized,” he said of the family who are originally from Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, an area that has been under assault by Russia or its allied militias since 2014. Something as routine as the noon whistle or the siren of an ambulance is enough to trigger flashbacks, he said.

Klausner said he was touched by how the village has responded to the family. “When they got here, they were warmly welcomed,” he said. “They went for pizza, and they got free pizza. A store gave free pajamas to the mother. They were given discounted prices at the pharmacy, and the school district went above and beyond to make the kids feel comfortable,” providing them with supplies and helping them become used to the classroom.

The Temple Adas Israel congregation decided to get involved in the Ukrainian crisis last summer. An appeal Klausner made for donations quickly doubled its initial $18,000 goal, and the congregation then decided to try to sponsor a refugee family.

Working with HIAS and other organizations, the congregation was eventually matched with a family in October. “They set up a Zoom call, where we could meet the family,” Klausner said. “We had to approve the family, and they had to approve us.”

Once the match was agreed to, the congregation bought the family plane tickets, and in a matter of weeks, they were on their way to the United States.

They are here under the federal United for Ukraine program, which is extending full American benefits, including work permits, to Ukrainian families and allowing them to stay in the United States for two years.

While the family has a place to stay until May, Klausner said the need now is to prepare for the long term. “They are going to need housing, beds and furniture,” he said. Additional funding is also needed to get them on their feet.

“This wonderful family went from hell to paradise,” Klausner said. “The long-term goal is to give them wings and let them fly.”

Contributions can be sent to Temple Adas Israel, P.O. Box 1378, Sag Harbor 11932, or made on its website, templeadasisreal.org. More information can be obtained by emailing Klausner at president@templeadasisrael.org.