The Egyptian government has confirmed a ban on Jewish pilgrimages to the grave of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, who is buried in Beheira Governorate, just east of Alexandria, according to the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram. Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira is the grandfather of Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira, better known as the Baba Sali, who was a leader of the…
Thousands of Jewish pilgrims have begun leaving Uman, Ukraine, where their week-long stay resulted in a fire, power shortages, a sewage flood and several arrests. One of the incidents involved three Israeli police officers who were sent to Uman to help police the estimated 26,000 Jewish pilgrims who congregate every year, ahead of the Jewish…
kraine is planning to open a decommissioned airport near Uman for Jewish pilgrims. The airport of Cherkasy Oblast, the central Ukrainian district where Uman is located, may be reopened as soon as next year, spokesperson Nicholas Sukhovoj told the Israeli Russian-language newspaper Vesti. The move would help alleviate traffic from the Odessa-Kiev highway that pilgrims…
The recent placing of a crucifix near the Uman grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was an act of “clear provocation,” Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, chief rabbi of Ukraine, said. “Ukraine is not a Jewish country and Ukrainian Jews respect Christian symbols like crosses,” Bleich told the Jewish Ukrainian news site Еvreiskiy.kiev.ua. “However, the cross raised…
Africa’s oldest synagogue is playing host to that rarity in the Arab world – a religious gathering of hundreds of Jews drawn from Europe and Israel. Guarded by armed Tunisian police, Jewish revellers chant and dance in a three-day pilgrimage to the El Ghriba synagogue at an island resort 500 km south of Tunis. In…
Balancing her voluptuous figure on high heels, Alexandra Rostov boards a minibus at Kiev’s Moskovskyi bus station, setting down her zebra-patterned bag as the driver starts the Soviet-era clunker. Like thousands of Ukrainians, Rostov is heading to Uman, a sleepy city of some 85,000 in central Ukraine, to find work associated with the annual pilgrimage…
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