Despite war: Ukrainian city expects 30,000 Jewish pilgrims

class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>

“We expect more than 30,000 pilgrims,” Deputy Mayor Oleh Hanitsch said on Ukrainian news television on Wednesday. The data is based on information from tourism operators about tours sold to the city in the Cherkasy region. There were just as many Orthodox pilgrims in peacetime before the corona epidemic, the city representative said. According to him, in the first year of the war in 2022, 23,000 Hasids traveled to Uman despite warnings.

This year, the New Year’s celebrations will take place from next Friday to Sunday under increased security measures. The sale of alcohol was banned in the city for two weeks. Fireworks are also prohibited. In the Cherkasy region south of the capital Kiev, as in most other Ukrainian areas, a nightly curfew of several hours applies. According to Hanitsch, the Ukrainian police officers are supported by Israeli colleagues. Just on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against traveling to Uman due to the lack of bomb shelters. The city has been hit several times by missile and drone attacks since the Russian invasion began more than eighteen months ago.

Tens of thousands of strictly religious Jews make a pilgrimage to Ukraine every year for the Jewish New Year to visit Rabbi Nachman’s grave in Uman. Even before the war, the district town, located almost 200 kilometers south of Kiev, had only a little more than 80,000 inhabitants. (SDA)

Source: Blick