Rosh Hashanah during the Pandemic 2020

For more than 30 years Breslov Hasidic are have been regularly coming to Uman to celebrate the Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah. In 2020 it lasts from 18 to 20 September. They buy apartments here, start a business, and some even move to live in the vicinity of the tomb of their tsaddik Rabbi Nahman. He was the founder of Breslov Hasidism. He died in Uman and urged all his followers to come to him for the Jewish New Year - then they will be healthy and happy. The Hasidic live in isolation and occasionally fight the locals, who reproach them for hooliganism and disorder. Some people in Uman like Hasidic because they earn money from them. Last year during the Rosh Hashanah, Uman officially earned 7.5 million hryvnias. And this year, Mayor Alexander Cebri opposed the Hasidic arrival and even spent the night under the President’s Office in Kyiv. He fears that they will infect the locals with coronavirus, and the Hasidic claim that he simply wants to please the local population before the elections. Ukraine did prohibit the entry of foreigners at the end of August, but several thousand Hasidic had arrived in Ukraine before the border was closed. Others are tried to break through the Belarusian and Polish borders. We visited the Jewish block in Uman three days before the beginning of Rosh Hashanah and watched how the Hasidic prepare for the holiday. They’re frustrated, and the authorities are reinforcing the quarantine.

Pushkina street. Uman. Ukraine. September 2020

The entrance to the Jewish district in Uman is easily recognized by signs in Hebrew, loud music and dozens of unfinished constructions. The Hasidic in their traditional attire - white shirts, black trousers, and long black capes - walk slowly down the main street in the name of Pushkin. Here is the synagogue with the tomb of Rabbi Nahman, the founder of the Breslav Hasidism. Hasids pray and discuss the news - due to the quarantine other pilgrims are not allowed to cross the border from Belarus to Ukraine.