The city of Lviv in northwestern Ukraine—formerly known as Lwów, Lemberg, or, to Jews, Lemberik—was once the regional capital of eastern Galicia and a major center of Jewish life. Built in 1582 by an Italian Christian architect, its elegant Golden Rose (Turei Zahav) synagogue was desecrated and partially destroyed by the Nazis, and then repurposed as a warehouse by the Soviets. But it was used once again Wednesday evening, on the holiday of Purim, to read the scroll of Esther. Carrie Keller-Lynn writes:

Meylakh Sheykhet, the lay leader of the Turei Zehav community, opened a heavy wooden door and beckoned me inside. He was rushing, because although the book of Esther—or megillah—should be read at sundown, his community moved its reading to the late afternoon, “because everyone wants to get home before curfew” at 10 p.m., he said.

The few congregants’ current sanctuary is the former entryway of the synagogue, to which they affixed a wall to create a sealed space. It’s now stuffed with prayer books and Judaica, as well as mattresses and boxes of clothing donated for Ukrainian refugees, about a dozen of whom sleep in the prayer space every evening.

On Wednesday evening, his community boasted five members, who were guarded by two security staff. “We’re here all the time,” one said. Turei Zahav has taken its hits as much from assimilation and immigration to Israel as it has from COVID-19 and, now, the war. Before the pandemic, Turei Zehav boasted “four minyans a day,” said Sheykhet, referring to a Jewish prayer quorum of ten people. Now, it can’t fill one.

After the megillah reading ended, Turei Zahav reconfigured its sanctuary into a refugee shelter for the night, ending the story about redemption from the brink of annihilation, while praying for Ukraine’s own.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.