Fire destroys Chabad center in Ukrainian town where founding rabbi buried

A large fire ripped through the Rabbeinu HaGadol visitors complex in the Ukrainian town of Hadiach near the cemetery where the founder of Chabad Hassidism is buried on Friday night.

The fire caused millions of dollars in damage to the Chabad visitor center, near the resting place of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in Ukraine’s Poltava region.

It was unclear what caused the fire.

The blaze reportedly started at around midnight. Investigators are looking into all possible causes, including that it may have been started by an electrical fault, media reports said.

Flames reportedly consumed the complex’s synagogue, kitchen, and reception hall, with the main building almost completely destroyed.

Local Chabad emissary Rabbi Shneur Zalman Deitsch and his family were not injured, and the rabbi was was not in the complex at the time.

The main Chabad Synagogue in the Ukraine has been destroyed. pic.twitter.com/VXBaLGFzjg

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“We are in total shock. The damage is incomprehensible. This is very painful,” Deitsch told the Haredi 10 outlet, which caters to the ultra-Orthodox community.

Expressing his relief that there were no injuries, Deitsch vowed to embrace his Hasidic principles and not give up.

“We will find the strength, we will rehabilitate anew, it will take as much time and money as is necessary and will make it even bigger and more beautiful.”

The complex is considered the second-largest Jewish pilgrimage and prayer site in Ukraine, after the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov located in the city of Uman.

Some 10,000 people visit the Chabad center each year, and those numbers are said to have continued despite the ongoing war with Russia. The largest annual event is a memorial for Zalman’s death, which falls around November or December, according to the Hebrew calendar.

Zalman, also known as the Ba’al HaTanya, was born in Liozna in 1745, in what is modern-day Belarus. He founded the Chabad Hasidic movement.

Zalman fled his home during the war between Russia and France. During a journey towards Kremenchuk, he became unwell and died on December 26, 1812.

His body was taken to Hadiach — a distance of some 200 kilometers — where he was buried. His grave became a pilgrimage site, but the city’s Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust, and later communist rulers obstructed access to the rabbi’s grave.

In the 1990s, the New York-based then-Lubavitch Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, instructed Chabad emissaries to restore the grave, and it once again became a major pilgrimage site.

The complex was established nearly 20 years ago and has undergone frequent expansion work. It includes the synagogue, guest rooms, dining halls and ritual immersion pools.