Health rules leave pilgrims stranded at Ukraine border

‘Those people who lured Hasidic Jews to Belarus promising them entry to Ukraine committed a crime’

AT least 1,000 Hasidic Jews are stranded on the border in Ukraine after being blocked from entering Belarus for their annual pilgrimage.

They ignored warnings that the frontier with Belarus would be closed to all foreigners due to coronavirus restrictions and began arriving at the checkpoint on Monday.

By yesterday morning there were hundreds who “would not give up on trying to get into Ukraine” and another 4,000 could arrive at other crossing points in the coming days, according to Serhiy Deyneko, chief of the border guards service.

He arrived on Tuesday after the pilgrims blocked the highway but he could not convince them to leave.

The town of Uman, about 125 miles south of the Ukranian capital Kyiv, is home to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, a revered figure for ultra-orthodox Jews.

The forthcoming Jewish New Year has attracted up to 40,000 Hasidic pilgrims to the town in the past.

Israel’s coronavirus tsar publicly spoke out against the pilgrimage and Ukraine’s leading rabbis have warned Jews not to visit this year, saying that the local health system might collapse under a second wave of coronavirus.

Hasidic Jews ended up at the Ukrainian border after officials in Belarus, which does not have any coronavirus restrictions in place, let them enter the country and leave for the buffer zone.

Anton Herashchenko, Ukraine’s deputy interior minister, said: “Those people who cheated and lured Hasidic Jews to Belarus, promising that they can get them to Ukraine − they committed a crime. We have no grounds to let them into Ukraine.”