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18-09-2023
UMAN, UKRAINE: David Meinhart is confident he arrived in the safest place on Earth.
He is in Uman, a city in central Ukraine that annually hosts tens of thousands of Hasidic Jewish pilgrims for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
This year some 32,000 arrived even though the Russian-Ukrainian war rages 300km (120 miles) to the south, and cruise missiles have struck Uman several times, killing two dozen people, including five children.
The war did not scare them off because they believe in their Rabbi’s help from beyond the grave and remember their forefathers’ millennia-long survival in communities that barely tolerated Jews and occasionally turned hostile to them.
Pilgrims chose to flock to the grave of Rabbi Nachman, the founder of the Breslav branch of Hasidism, who died here in 1810. A blessed new year will come to fruition if they celebrate its eve near Nachman’s grave, they say.
“We are a people who have lived and survived persecution, wars and dangers for thousands of years,” Meinhart, 62, told media.
His family’s past reflects this survival experience. His father moved to the United States from Germany before World War II and fought against the Nazis who killed his relatives during the Holocaust.
Meinhart was born in the US but moved to Jerusalem 40 years ago to join a Hasidic community and father nine children.
This year, he came to Uman with his sons leaving his wife and daughters behind was his only concession to the possible dangers of war.
“I could have brought my wife and my children, but I opted not to,” he said.
Some female pilgrims, however, braved the Russian invasion. “There’s no fear,” said Rachel, a 25-year-old French Jew.
She is adamant the pilgrimage does change people’s lives for the better, and they return to their rabbi’s grave again and again.
“People wouldn’t come back here if [positive] things didn’t happen to them,” Rachel said, standing on Pushkin Street in central Uman, the epicentre of pilgrimage.
The pilgrims who usually spend between two days and a week here transform the sleepy, impoverished city of 80,000.
They throng the streets leading to Nachman’s grave and pay hundreds of dollars for a single bed. Less affluent visitors pitch tents next to apartment buildings or garages.
Cafeterias and fast food joints along their way display signs in Hebrew and promise kosher food and drink, while Israeli authorities and charities provide refreshments free of charge. (Int’l News Desk)
