Bloody Pig’s Head Carved With Swastika Dumped at Ukraine Pilgrimage Synagogue
– Unknown individuals broke into a synagogue in the Ukrainian city of Uman, sprayed red paint on the walls and left behind a pig’s head with a swastika carved into its forehead.
The attack occurred on Tuesday night, DS News reported. The synagogue is part of the Ohel complex, built near the gravesite of the Breslover movement’s founder, Rabbi Nachman.
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 18th-century luminary.
The pilgrimage often has created friction between the predominantly Israeli new arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the cordoning off by police of neighborhoods for the pilgrims.
Brawls between locals and pilgrims are common. In recent years, incidents that occurred at Uman included the placing of broken glass on the bank of a river where pilgrims take ritual baths; the erection of crosses near that place and protests where nationalists shouted “Hasids out of Uman.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO