Ukrainian nationalists destroyed a tent city erected by Hassidic Jews in Uman on Sept. 5, ahead of the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage, an Uman Jewish leader said.
“On Shabbat, when they knew we wouldn’t be able to respond or activate the communication device, they simply knocked down the fence, pushed the light poles and security cameras, and caused damage estimated at half a million dollars,” Eliezer Kirshboim, chairman and director of the Jewish association in Uman, told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.
Police officers did not intervene to stop the attacks, the newspaper reported.
Since the fall of communism, Uman has seen the arrival of thousands of pilgrims on the Jewish New Year who come to visit the gravesite of Breslov Hassidim’s founder, Rabbi Nachman (1772-1810).
The pilgrimage often has created friction between the predominantly Israeli new arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the cordoning off by police of neighborhoods for the pilgrims. The right-wing activists were seeking to harass the Hassids in order to gain political points among the locals, Kirshboim asserted.
“Whoever harasses the Hassidim more has a better chance of winning the elections in October,” he said. — jta