Chabad rabbi critically wounded in Ukraine robbery
Israel-French national injured in head in town of Zhytomyr; family arranges return to Israel for medical treatment
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An Israeli Chabad rabbi who holds dual Israeli-French citizenship was in critical condition after he was reportedly robbed and beaten in the Ukraine.
The man was identified as Rabbi Menachem Mendel Deitsch, a Chabad emissary in France and Israel. He was robbed in the Ukrainian town of Zhytomyr at the town’s central train station and was discovered Friday morning, Chabad.org said in a press release.
He was transferred to a Kiev hospital, with serious head injuries, where he was expected to undergo an operation.
The man’s family in Israel began preparations to fly him on Saturday to Israel for continued medical treatment, coordinating the trip with the Israeli consulate in Kiev.
Elsewhere in the Ukraine, approximately 25,000 Jewish pilgrims from Israel, the United States and Europe converged on the town of Uman in the yearly pilgrimage ahead of Rosh Hashanah,
They congregate there for the holiday because it is the final resting place of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the 18th-century founder of the group. He chose to be buried there because in 1749 and 1768 thousands of Jews were murdered there in pogroms. Rabbi Nachman promised his followers that he would save anyone who visited his grave on Rosh Hashanah from punishment in the afterlife.
The pilgrimage has generated friction between the predominantly Israeli arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the police cordoning off neighborhoods for the pilgrims.
The Times of Israel Community.