Meeting in Uman
Meeting in UmanWorld Breslov Center spokesman

Rabbis and organizers from the Breslov hassidic stream met with top officials in the Ukrainian governmment Monday, as well as the commanders of police and secret police in the Cherkasy Province, ahead of the annual mass pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

The meeting took place at the World Breslov Center in the large synagogue in Uman known as the “Kloyz.”

The meeting dealt, among other things, with security, and cooperation between the World Breslov Center and the local police was discussed.

The rabbis said that a statue has been placed in the pond where the tashlich ceremony is usually held. It was decided, in joint consultation, to hold the tashlich at an alternative body of water. The tashlich ceremony is one in which Jews stand near a body of water and symbolically cast their sins into the water as part of the period of atonement leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On the hassidic side, the meeting was directed by the director of the Breslov Center in Uman, Rabbi Shimon Buskila, with the participation of leading Breslov rabbis, including Rabbi Shalom Arush and Rabbi Eliyahu Godlevsky.

Unlike most other hassidic sects, Breslov hassidim have not had a single Rebbe (Grand Rabbi), since the death of the movement's founder, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, in 1810.