Home of Chabad rabbi in Dnipro, Ukraine, hit by Russian missile

The home of a Chabad rabbi in Dnipro was hit during a deadly Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city early Saturday.

Rabbi Moshe Weber was asleep at 3:45 am in his central Dnipro apartment with his wife and four of his 11 children when a Russian missile hit the residential tower.

He and his family had returned days earlier from a Chabad camp in Poland, and had heard specific warnings that the next few days could be tumultuous, he tells The Times of Israel. However, he and his family decided to sleep in their beds after their Shabbat meal, instead of spending the night in the parking garage under the building that serves as a makeshift bomb shelter.

They were suddenly woken by a powerful blast. “I felt it was really, really close to us, and then I saw from the window that bricks were falling and broken windows,” says Weber.

His kids “woke up in a frenzy,” Weber recalls. “We opened the door, and then we heard the shock of the sirens, the fire. Total darkness and the water pipes burst.”

When they reached the street below they looked up and saw that their own building had been hit, and flames were pouring out of the 26th floor where the missile hit. Two of Weber’s neighbors were killed.

The Webers were allowed back in at 7:30 a.m., and saw that although their balcony was damaged, there was no damage inside the apartment. But only after the Jewish Sabbath when he read about the attack did he realized how lucky his family was. “I said, what a miracle.”

“We are Chabad emissaries who are here and are not afraid of anything and are here for the local Jews who need us more than ever and we try to do what is incumbent on us,” says Weber. “The [Lubavitcher] Rebbe watches over us, the Holy One, blessed be He, is watching over us.”

Weber heads Kolel Torah in Ukraine, a network of Torah learning centers operating with over 5,000 participants.

Earlier this month, the car of Kherson rabbi Yossi Wolf was hit by a drone, and he too was not hurt.

Dozens of Jews from Dnipro have been killed fighting against the Russians, says Weber.

“It was a very difficult night in Dnipro,” adds Rabbi Meir Stambler, chairman of the Jewish communities of Ukraine. “I don’t recall such intense and massive bombardments — and we’ve had rockets several times a week — since the war began three and a half years ago. There’s clearly a significant escalation in recent months, and we, the civilians, feel it firsthand.”

“It is time to end this war and put a stop to the terrorism that continues to claim the lives of innocent civilians and soldiers on the battlefield every week,” says Stambler.