Rabbi narrowly survives direct hit Russian drone attack after walking out of synagogue to attach mezuzah

It was not his first narrow escape: in July, a drone strike hit the family’s car outside the city, destroying the engine but leaving them unharmed.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

A Russian drone strike severely damaged Kherson’s only synagogue on Thursday, narrowly missing its rabbi, who had stepped outside just moments before the blast.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Wolff, the city’s longtime Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, had gone to affix a mezuzah at the home of a community member when the attack occurred.

“There’s damage, but it’s not destroyed and it’s fixable,” he said, explaining that the projectile pierced the building’s walls but did not detonate. Chabad described his survival as a “miracle.”

The strike came during a major Russian drone assault across eastern and southern Ukraine, with local authorities reporting more than 130 projectiles launched overnight.

In Kherson, the blast tore through parts of the synagogue’s roof and interior, but spared lives.

Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi Moshe Azman said the Kherson synagogue was one of two Jewish houses of worship struck that day, the other in Kyiv.

Writing on X, he called the near miss “a great miracle,” noting that “although the rocket hit the synagogue directly, it did not explode.”

Azman also voiced concern over what he described as a growing pattern of attacks on synagogues and urged Ukrainian Jews to heed air raid warnings.

Kherson’s Jewish community numbers several hundred households.

Rabbi Wolff, who moved from Israel to Ukraine more than 30 years ago with his wife, Chaya, has continued his outreach work throughout the war.

It was not his first narrow escape: in July, a drone strike hit the family’s car outside the city, destroying the engine but leaving them unharmed.

Recent months have seen other Jewish sites targeted by Russian strikes. In August, a drone attack damaged Odesa’s Old Peresip Synagogue, and days earlier, a missile barrage hit the Kyiv home of an Israeli diplomat’s aide.

Ukrainian emergency services reported one rescue worker killed and five injured Thursday while responding to a separate drone-related fire in the Kharkiv region town of Zelenyi Hai.