KYIV (Reuters) – Israeli Hasidic Jews will have to forego an annual pilgrimage to the central Ukrainian town of Uman this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the town’s mayor has said.
Every Jewish New Year, tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who revived the Hasidic movement and died in 1810.
This year, Jewish New Year celebrations run from Sept 18-20.
“The common opinion is that the arrival of tens of thousands of Hasidic pilgrims to Uman to conduct the celebration in the traditional format is impossible,” mayor Oleksander Tsebriy said on Facebook.
He cited the prevalence of the coronavirus in both Ukraine and Israel, and the difficulty of monitoring compliance with the required safety measures.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
