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World Jewish News
Beginning of the rally on Uman' central square (photo by Iekezel Glantz)
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Uman’ Rally Against the Hasidism “Occupation” of the City
22.01.2012 On January 16, a rally was held in Uman’ against Hasidism and Jewish pilgrims who visit the city. The activity of Jewish organizations was said to be an “occupation” by the organizers of the event.
The rally was organized as an answer to the decision of the Cherkasy Oblast Economic Court from December 22, 2011, on the lawsuit filed by the public prosecution office against the Municipal Council of Uman’ and the “Megommetr” plant, which was to rule illegal the 2007 privatization through buy-out of almost 6 hectares of land by the public corporation “Uman’ Plant ‘Megommetr.’” The agreement of sale and purchase of municipal land was contested on the grounds that the plot of land was on the territory of the archeological cultural property site “Territory of a Late Middle Ages City (Uman’ Citadel and Nearby Suburb)” and contains historic monuments. This tract of land is located directly next to the grave of Hasid Tsaddik Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, which is a destination for the annual pilgrimage of tens of thousand Orthodox Jews – Hasidim. For many years, the plant has been renting buildings to those who organized the pilgrimage, raising the price each year, until the Hasidim stopped working with the plant’s administration in 2011.
From the summer of 2011, the nominal owners (Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the “Megommetr” plant Vladimir Kryzhanovsky and his wife) supported a group of activists of the anti-pilgrimage and anti-Hasidim movement, which has conducted a number of provocative events directed against the local Jewish community and the pilgrims.
Having lost the court battle on the legality of their privatization of the plot of land, the owners of the plant organized a rally “against corruption and occupation” with the aid of the activists from anti-Hasidim and radical right groups. The formal organizators of the rally were the Uman’ Division of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine and the Council of Uman’ Community-Based Organizations, together with the Uman’ City and Cherkasy Oblast divisions of the Pan-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” and the Sokol youth organization. An estimated 300-400 people took part in the rally. One of the conductors of the meeting, Vladimir Goncharuk, is currently on remand for a criminal case in connection with the September disturbances.
The rally can be seen as a gesture of despair by the owners of the plant and an attempt to put pressure on the local authorities. True to type, the decision of the court, which restored legality and revoked the purchase of a preserved plot of land, made after a lawsuit was filed by the public prosecution office, was presented at the rally as “actions of a corrupted government” and as the result of “the Jewish occupation.”
Naturally, attempts to solve financial and business problems through mobilizing the community with xenophobic slogans deserve most serious attention. The consequences of a possible continuation of a conscious and systematic anti-Semitic campaign in Uman’ may be quite serious. More on this as it breaks.
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