Ukrainian authorities have begun preparations for the annual influx of Jewish High Holiday pilgrims from Israel and the United States.
According to the State Border Service (SBS), approximately 40,000 Jews are expected to make the trek to the small Ukrainian city of Uman for Rosh Hashanah this year, up from 30,000 in 2016.
Every year tens of thousands of pilgrims come to Uman to pray, dance and ring in the Jewish new year at the grave of the early 19th century Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
According to the SBS, around 500 local police officers, supported by 15 Israeli policemen, will be on hand to maintain public order as well as special firefighting, diving and pyrotechnic detachments.
This cooperation "symbolizes a successful partnership between Ukraine and Israel in general, our interaction with the National Police is always at the highest level, we appreciate what you are doing for the pilgrims, and we are counting on you this year,” Israeli ambassador to Kyiv Eli Belotserkovski told the RIA news service.
Despite the good cooperation on a state level and things are generally peaceful, Uman has also been a flashpoint between Jews and Ukrainians. There have been a number of violent incidents between the two groups during the High Holidays, when the overwhelmingly Orthodox Jewish pilgrims fill the town.
Last year two Israelis were arrested for firing a bb gun at locals out of their room’s window and in 2015 a group of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists destroyed a Jewish tent encampment while police stood by. Also in 2015 residents of the city erected a statue of Ivan Gonta and Maxim Zheleznyakov, who were among the leaders of a 1768 uprising against Poland, and carried out a pogrom, which, according to some estimates, killed between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews.
Last December unknown assailants threw a pig’s head into the synagogue atop Rebbe Nachman’s grave, prompting one of the Jews praying at the site to comment that he "thought there was going to be a pogrom."
