Uman

City in central Ukraine and site of the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the goal of a mass Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage by Breslov Hasidim and other Jews

Uman
Умань
Type	City
Country	Ukraine
Oblast	Cherkasy Oblast
Founded	17th century (as a fort)
Known for	Grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (died 1810); 1768 massacre; annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage

Uman (Ukrainian Умань) is a city in Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, about 200 km south of Kyiv. Its Jewish community suffered massacres in 1768, in the Civil War of 1919–21 and in the Holocaust. The city holds the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (also Bratslav; 1772–1810), founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, who chose to be buried among the victims of the 1768 massacre. Every year at Rosh Hashanah tens of thousands of pilgrims, most of them from Israel, travel to his grave. JTA reported that more than 40,000 were expected in 2025, increasing the city's population "by nearly half". The pilgrimage involves the Israeli and Ukrainian states, through consular staff, police, travel warnings, border controls and subsidies. It was disrupted by the COVID-19 border closure in 2020, and since 2022 it has taken place in wartime against official advice. It has also caused friction with local residents.

Uman is a Breslov site, not a Chabad one. JTA described it in 2025 as home to the grave of "the founder of the Hasidic Breslov sect". Chabad's role there is small; see "Chabad presence" below.

Jewish history

According to the JewishGen KehilaLinks history of the city, Uman was "founded in the seventeenth century as a defensive fort against the Tatars". "Jews were living in Uman at the time of the anti-Polish Haidamak insurrection of 1749; many of these Jews were killed". "The 1768 uprising decimated the Jews of Uman – it's estimated that several thousand Jews and Poles were brutally murdered." The massacre is commemorated by a fast on the fifth of Tammuz.

• 1919–21. During the Russian Civil War, "In Uman, the Jewish residents were killed primarily by the Cossacks led by Symon Petliura."
• Holocaust. After the Battle of Uman in 1941, "the Germans set about murdering the entire Jewish population of Uman – estimated to be 17,000 men, women, and children – and burying them in a mass grave". They also "destroyed the Uman cemetery, where both the victims of the 1768 massacre and Rebbe Nachman are buried". The US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad says that "During the Nazi occupation and the Soviet era, the cemetery was ransacked, and tombstones were broken down and removed".

Editor's note: the death toll of 1768 and the number of Jews murdered in 1941 differ between sources; JewishGen's figures are used here. A scholarly source on the city's Jewish history (for example the YIVO Encyclopedia) could not be fetched and should be added.

The grave of Rabbi Nachman

The US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, a US federal body, describes the old Jewish cemetery as "one of, if not the most, visited Jewish pilgrimage sites in the world outside of Israel". It gives Rabbi Nachman's dates as 4 April 1772 – 16 October 1810. "During his lifetime, Rabbi Nachman repeatedly expressed a wish to be buried among the victims of the Uman massacre ... After the Rabbi's death on October 16, 1810, he was buried between the two mass graves of the Haydamak's victims." The commission has raised funds for a commemorative marker with the Historical Cultural Center of Uman Foundation. AP described Nachman as the "grandson of the mythic founder of Hasidic Judaism the Baal Shem Tov", who "stressed to his disciples the importance of celebrating the Rosh Hashanah holiday with him".

The Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage

History. AP reported that "immediately after his death, his followers made annual pilgrimages to his tomb in Uman on Rosh Hashanah". The gatherings grew "until the Russian Communist Revolution brought these pilgrimages to a screeching halt". "With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bratslav Hasidim again flocked to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, first in the thousands and then in the tens of thousands." One pilgrim told AP he had come since 1991, "when the collapse of the Soviet Union made the pilgrimage accessible to foreign visitors". JTA wrote that "What began as a pilgrimage just for Breslov Hasidim has morphed into a journey for Jews from many different walks of life", and that the pilgrimage "is almost exclusively completed by men".

Numbers.

Year	Reported figure	Source
2020	"Some 30,000" in a normal year; about 2,000 stranded at the Belarus border; "Thousands of Israelis" already in Uman
2021	"More than 35,000" (local official Oleh Hanich)
2022	23,000 (according to the United Jewish Community of Ukraine); normally "some 30,000"
2023	"tens of thousands"
2025	"more than 40,000" expected
2026	"more than 35,000" expected from Israel alone (preliminary estimate)

The Israeli and Ukrainian states

• Consular and police presence. AP reported that "In 2018, the festivities were so large that the Israeli government established a temporary consulate in the city", and that "The Israel Police has also regularly sent a small detachment of uniformed officers to help keep the peace".
• 2020: COVID-19 border closure. In August 2020 Israel's coronavirus commissioner, Ronni Gamzu, "appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to prevent the pilgrimage". Ukraine then closed its borders to foreigners. After protests by the Haredi community, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed the minister Ze'ev Elkin to look for a solution. Ukrainian authorities said about 2,000 pilgrims had gathered on the Belarusian side of the border. Elkin reported "a final negative answer today from the Ukrainian authorities" and urged them to go home. Ukraine's border guard chief told the pilgrims: "this year you will not be able to get to Uman". Ukraine and Belarus traded accusations over the standoff.
• 2022: wartime warnings. In September 2022 Israel's Foreign Ministry warned that a visit would pose a "real and immediate risk to lives", and the Prime Minister's Office urged citizens not to go "in light of the life-threatening danger posed by entering the combat area". In July the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, had said Ukraine "cannot guarantee the security of pilgrims" and asked worshippers instead to "pray for the victory of Ukraine". Uman's mayor, Iryna Pletnyova, also tried to deter pilgrims. Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised against the trip: "I am afraid that there could be provocations. Who will take responsibility for the lives of people?" About 23,000 came anyway.
• 2023. Meeting Chabad rabbis on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Zelensky said that Israeli weapons would have made it easier to protect "the tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims who are in the city of Uman". JTA noted that they had travelled "despite safety warnings from both Ukraine and Israel".
• 2025: subsidies and the draft dispute. JTA reported that the Israeli government "allocated 2.7 million shekels (about $800,000) to subsidize travel", after Moldova, the main transit route, "balked at the mounting costs". At the same time "at least 100" Haredi men who had ignored draft notices were arrested at Ben Gurion Airport on their way to Uman. JTA said the pilgrimage had "emerged as a flashpoint" in the dispute over military service for yeshiva students. Ukrainian soldiers were deployed to the city for security.
• 2026. Ukrainian border, police and Vinnytsia regional military officials met Breslov representatives to plan border crossings and security. Ukrainian airspace was still closed, so pilgrims were expected to come overland through Moldova, Romania and Poland.

Local tensions

In August 2020, as Uman's mayor Oleksandr Tsebriy campaigned to limit the pilgrimage because of COVID-19 (he picketed the President's Office), a group of residents blocked some Hasidim from entering a property near the grave, saying the building was illegal. BBC News Ukraine reported that one resident told them in English: "This is my house. Go!" The Cherkasy regional police opened a case under the article on violating the equality of citizens on grounds of race, nationality or religious belief. The United Jewish Community of Ukraine, citing the Rabbi Nachman Foundation, said the dispute was about property and that it "found no signs of antisemitism" in the video (translated from Ukrainian).

Legal status. The 2020 case was a police investigation; its outcome was not found.

Editor's note: other reported incidents (assaults on pilgrims; disputes over building near the grave; local complaints about noise and alcohol) have not yet been researched from primary or reliable press sources and should be added with care. Allegations should be kept separate from findings.

Chabad presence

Chabad is a minor presence at the pilgrimage:

• In 2013 COLlive (Chabad-side) reported that "A Chabad minyan, using Nusach Ari siddurim, was offered to the many who came to Uman to spend Rosh Hashana at the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov".
• In August 2026 COLlive reported that Rabbi Shaul Horowitz, "Shliach and Rabbi of Vinnytsia", met representatives of the Vinnytsia regional military administration, the National Police and the border guard, together with Breslov representatives (Rabbi Natan Ben Nun of Ichud Breslov), to plan security and border crossings. COLlive said he "has assisted Breslov travelers in making the annual journey to Uman for years" (Chabad-side).
• In 2023 Zelensky's remarks about the Uman pilgrims were made at a meeting with Chabad rabbis organised by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine.

Editor's note: no source was found for a permanent Chabad emissary or Chabad house in Uman itself. Claims in reader comments under the COLlive articles were not used.

Timeline

Date	Event
1749	Haidamak attack; many Jews killed
1768	Uman massacre of Jews and Poles
16 October 1810	Death of Rabbi Nachman; buried between the mass graves of 1768
1919–21	Pogroms during the Russian Civil War
1941	The Jews of Uman murdered after the German occupation
c. 1991	Foreign pilgrims able to reach the grave again
2018	Israel opens a temporary consulate for the pilgrimage
August–September 2020	COVID-19 border closure; pilgrims stranded at the Belarus border; clash with residents
September 2022	About 23,000 pilgrims come despite Israeli and Ukrainian warnings
September 2025	Israel subsidises travel; at least 100 draft evaders arrested on the way

See also

• Nachman of Breslov
• Breslov
• Chabad and Ukraine
• Chabad Lubavitch of Ukraine
• Moshe Reuven Azman
• United Jewish Community of Ukraine