A ‘pilot light’ of global compassion is awakened for Ukraine

A woman comforts her child as a pet dog looks on at a refugee shelter after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Beregsurány, Hungary, March 7, 2022. Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

March 25, 2022

It is a phrase I heard many years ago – from an Orthodox rabbi with a long, graying beard and a twinkle of optimism in his eyes – and it’s been increasingly on my mind amid the Russian army’s murderous assault on besieged civilians in Ukraine.

Pintele yid. The words are Yiddish. And, as the rabbi explained, they encapsulate the traditional belief that inside any Jewish person, however distant or alienated from his faith, there’s always a tiny flicker of Jewishness waiting to be rekindled at the most unexpected moment.

It’s a bit like a pilot light in a gas heater that ignites a flame.

Now, the violence in Ukraine seems to have revealed a pilot light in millions of people of all faiths worldwide. A pintele of simple human connection, compassion, and caring has sparked a widespread desire to relieve Ukrainians’ suffering.

The outpouring of concern is not, in itself, new. We’ve seen it in response to a range of natural and man-made tragedies in the past – tsunamis, earthquakes, famines and, yes, wars as well.

But this international wave of solicitude seems different in important ways, not least because of its context. Our young millennium has so far been marked by a trend toward narrow nationalism, culture wars, and a certain disdain for humanitarian concerns as mere “virtue-signaling” or “wokeness.”

Fabrizio Bensch/ReutersA refugee rests inside the theater hall of Dom Ukrainski W Przemyslu (Ukrainian House), transformed into temporary accommodation for people fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Przemyśl, Poland, March 18, 2022.

The breadth of the popular response has been remarkable. I’m not alone, I suspect, in having been struck by the number of friends who have previously shown little involvement, or even interest, in world affairs but who’ve now become personally invested in what’s going on in Ukraine. And they want to help however they can.

In Britain – an island nation where a growing suspicion of immigrants helped decide the 2016 Brexit referendum vote to leave the European Union – the response has been dramatic. Even MPs from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s governing Conservative Party have been vocal in urging a much more generous and less bureaucratic policy toward Ukrainian refugees.