Hasidim want to make a pilgrimage to Ukraine. The Israeli authorities want to stop them
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The Ukrainian border guard informs that there are several hundred foreigners on the territory between the Belarusian and Ukrainian checkpoints at the Nowi Jaryłowyczi crossing point. In the evening, this group began to head to the Dolsk crossing in the Volyn region.
According to Belarusian border guards, this about 700 Hasidim, including over 100 children.
The local state agency BiełTA claims that it is about over 1.5 thousand. Hasidim who want to go to Ukraine in connection with the holiday Rosh Hashanah – the Judaic New Year.
The Ukrainian authorities estimate that on the occasion of the Rosh Hashana holiday celebrated on September 18-20, the city of Uman in the central part of the country will be visited by approx. 3,000 people. Hasidim. According to the head of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, Arsen Avakov, every year, about 30-40 thousand people make pilgrimages to the grave of Tzadik Nachman from Bracław. Hasidim from all over the world.
At the end of August, President Volodymyr Zelensky decided that this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, mass New Year celebrations in Uman are impossible.
Nachman from Bracław was the great-grandson of Baal Shem Tov, considered the founder of Hasidism, a rebellious mystical trend in Judaism in the 18th-century Polish Republic. Nachman himself is considered one of the most important restorers of this trend in the 19th century in the spirit of joy and direct contact with God.
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