Hasidic Pilgrim Missing in Ukraine
An Israeli man went missing in Uman during the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to a Hasidic movement founder’s grave in the Ukraine city.
Amir Ohana, 28, has not been seen since Tuesday, when he went into the forest to meditate, according to reports.
Ohana, the father of three, reportedly has a serious medical condition. Because of his illness, he was not able to purchase insurance for the trip, and therefore a search team has not been procured.
Local authorities are searching the forest and the nearby river. Israeli police officers and representatives of the ZAKA rescue and recovery organization have arrived on site to search as well, according to reports.
“Amir, my love, my heart goes out to you in prayer. Return to me,” his wife, Meital Tohar, wrote in a Facebook post. “Anyone who sees this message, pray for my righteous husband. Have mercy on me, without him I have no life!!! Pray friends, whoever can.”
Since the fall of communism, Uman has seen the arrival of thousands of pilgrims on the Jewish New Year who come to visit the gravesite of the Breslover movement’s founder, Rabbi Nachman.
The pilgrimage has created friction between the predominantly Israeli arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the cordoning off by police of neighborhoods for the pilgrims. Prior to Rosh Hashanah, Ukrainian nationalists destroyed a tent city erected by Hasidic Jews for the pilgrims.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO