‘People asked me not to take photos; it’s understandable; they’re at their lowest point’

Elhanan Miller meets Israeli photographer Maya Meshel, who travelled to Moldova to help refugees, armed with baby formula, warm clothes and her camera

AS IMAGES OF fleeing refugees began emerging after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Jerusalem photographer Maya Meshel knew she couldn’t stay put.

“Something inside me told me I have to go,” the 48-year-old mother of five told The Jewish Independent. “I told my husband I wanted to leave for Ukraine or nearby. As a documentary photographer I felt I have to stop talking and start doing.”

With a plan to both volunteer with Ukrainian refugees and document their plight, Meshel frantically searched for an Israeli delegation to join. Within days she boarded a flight to Bucharest with a group of volunteers from Hakhel, an Israeli-non profit that works with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. She was the only non-Russian speaker in her delegation of four.

“We brought eight suitcases between us, stuffed with baby formula, warm clothes, children’s books and games, dry food and snacks. At the El Al counter I explained that we were a humanitarian delegation and they let us send our overweight luggage at no cost,” she said.   

The group headed directly to the Moldovan capital Chisinau, a seven-hour drive from Bucharest, and set up shop in the Agudat Israel synagogue headed by rabbi Pinchas Salzman. Scores of Jewish and non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees had flocked to the synagogue, requiring emotional and logistical support.

“The volunteers tried to find documents for the refugees, to listen to them, to console them. Many of them had left family members back in Ukraine or stuck at the border. The sense was that Moldova, too, will be occupied by Putin, and everyone was scrambling to leave for Romania.”