“Putin takes himself for whom?”, the concern of the Jews of the “little Jerusalem” of Uman

The sanctuary of the Great Synagogue of Uman is deserted and the rare visitors for two months have rather come to the basement at night. During the anti-aircraft alarm sirens, mattresses remain scattered on the floor. The city, a real crossroads in the center of Ukraine, was only bombed at the very beginning of the war, at the end of February, but the majority of the 2,000 Hasidic Jews in the city left, many of them to Israel.

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Mordechai made this choice with his wife and five children. He finally returned in mid-May 2022: “This is my home! Like everyone else, we wanted to go home.“Yet only a few dozen of his neighbors are back in this”little jerusalem“, a tired neighborhood with rutted sidewalks. Here, Cyrillic largely gives way to Hebrew.

Mordecai entrusts him: he still does not understand this Russian invasion of Ukraine: “Putin comes to occupy this country which is not his! It doesn’t make sense… He ruins everyone’s life, he kills people. Who does he think he is? He has no right to do that.”

The proximity between Vladimir Putin and certain Hasidics in Russia does not change anything in his point of view. Mordechai has lived in this city for 12 years where he has always found that everyone here gets along well. It must be said that Uman is a historical center of Judaism in the region: the city welcomed before the Holocaust up to 22,000 Jews. And thousands of Hasidics still come to pray each year at the rabbi’s tomb. Nahman of Bratslav.

“There has never been anti-Semitism here“, assures Irina Rybnitskaya, who manages the foundation linked to the synagogue: “The different communities have always lived very well together. And this war she says, even brought us closer.”

“From the start of the war, the Hasidics have prayed for peace and taken sides with Ukraine. And it’s rare that they take a stand.”

Everyone wants only one thing, here: “Qlet the war end. So, perhaps some of the Hasidic Jews of Uman will return to their homes in Ukraine“, she concludes.