Pig's Head Thrown Into Synagogue Near Breslover Rebbe's Grave in Uman

Ukrainian prosecutors have initiated a high level investigation into an attack and desecration of a synagogue near the burial ground of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in the town of Uman, Ukraine. A group of unidentified men, variously referred to as ultra-nationalists or provocateurs, stormed the synagogue before dawn on Wednesday. They reportedly assaulted two pilgrims with tear gas, splattered red paint to resemble blood over the walls, and threw a severed pig’s head on the floor. The pig’s head had a swastika carved into its forehead. According to local reports reports several Israeli men were hospitalized.

The motive for this attack, and who perpetrated it, remain unclear at the time of publishing, though an investigation in ongoing. But it would be hard to ignore the fact that anti-Semitic tensions in Uman have been brewing for years, fueled in part by the rite of passage to the Breslover Rebbe’s grave that tens of thousands of Hasidim take part in every year. In fact, these episodic tensions between the local population and the occasionally riotous mysticism of the Hasidic pilgrims have become an annual journalistic ritual. 

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