Healing Through Love: How Camp Yeka Have Been Saving Children's Lives in Ukraine

From Boys to Girls: Building a Lifeline

The Camp Yeka Boys was founded with the guidance of Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky and the Dnipro Jewish community. With their help, the dream of a group of American yeshiva students who wanted to give Ukrainian children a place of joy, learning, and belonging, came true.

For years, the program thrived, staffed almost entirely by student volunteers who poured their summers into building lifelong bonds with children struggling with poverty, alcoholism at home, or complete abandonment. Stories of transformation abound boys who underwent brit milah at camp, children who discovered Jewish identity for the first time, teens who stayed connected long after the counselors left.

Seventeen years later, in 2015, Camp Yeka Girls was born. The spark came from their now female director, who preferred to stay anonymous. Then just 19, she had spent a year in a Ukrainian Jewish orphanage.

The first summer camp brought 110 girls, gathered through calls to Chabad orphanages across Ukraine. The children begged for more, and Yeka Girls quickly grew into a fixture of both summer and winter.

War Changes Everything

For both camps, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine upended everything. Suddenly, what had been a sanctuary for a few dozen children became a critical support system for hundreds displaced by war.

“In one summer, we went from dozens to nearly 400 girls,” says the girls director to JFeed. Camps relocated to Hungary and Israel, sometimes just weeks after bombings. Yeka also became a lifeline for relocation and resettlement. More than 100 girls now live permanently in Israel, with ongoing support, therapy, and mentorship from Yeka staff.

The boys’ side faced the same challenge.

Despite financial struggles, the mission remained unchanged: be present. Volunteers organized smaller programs across Europe and Israel, visiting refugee families, running camps during Pessach, and offering consistency in a world that had none.

The Yeka Effect

Both directors describe Yeka as a source of unconditional love in a culture often marked by harshness.

For the girls, the impact shows in everyday Jewish practice.

Between the most beautiful stories of Yeka, there is the candles' miracle: During the peak of Russia vs. Ukraine war, one night, close to the beginning of shabbat, one of the Yeka girls called her counselor in tears because she couldn’t light Shabbat candles at home, so the counselor promised to light for her.

The long-term bonds are undeniable. Weddings of former campers have become Yeka milestones; some now return as counselors and, years later, come presenting their kids. A few years ago, a friend of Levi’s was stopped by a soldier in Hebron. Suddenly, the combatent spoke to Berger's friend in Russian, revealing to be a former Yeka boy and asking if the man knew Levi Berger, who was with him in camp nine years earlier. “He and his brothers had done brit milah at Yeka,” Levi recalls. “He wanted to reconnect.”

Dreams for Tomorrow

Both directors speak with the same mix of realism and hope.

For now, Yeka continues to run three camps a year: summer, winter, and Pessach, across multiple countries. Every session is a patchwork of donations, volunteers, and resilience.

But for the children who learn how to pray, light candles, sing Hebrew songs, eat kisher food, keep shabbat and feel safe for the first time in months, Yeka is more than a camp. It is home.