Brat Slav Hasidim Horrified As Herzog Proudly Proposes Moving Rebbe’s Grave

There was much egg on the face of Israeli President Chaim Herzog after his dramatic announcement, at a state dinner this week for the visiting president of Ukraine, that he had secured Ukraine’s consent to move to Israel the remains of a revered Hasidic sage who died 180 years ago.

Bratslav Hasidim here and abroad reacted with horror to the announcement by the president that Ukraine would transfer to Israel the remains of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

It then emerged that Herzog had responded to the approaches of a maverick figure in fervently Orthodox haredi circles.

Rabbi Nachman’s grave, in the town of Uman, serves as the focus of Bratslav Hasidism, who have never had another rebbe since Nachman died.

The World Council of Bratslav Hasidim called on Herzog to admit that his announcement had flowed from a mistaken or misled appreciation of the facts.

There was no comment from Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk or his entourage. But knowledgeable Israeli observers said he, too, like the Hasidim, wants Rabbi Nachman to remain in his present resting place, since pilgrimages to the site are growing into a major local industry.

At Rosh Hashanah this year, 4,000 Hasidim and other enthusiasts spent the holiday at Uman. El Al set aside a fleet of 13 jumbo flights to ferry Israelis to and from Kiev.

Kravchuk addressed the Knesset on Tuesday and held talks with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and other Israeli figures. His transportation minister was to sign an accord with Israel’s Yisrael Kessar formalizing an aviation agreement between the two countries that will inaugurate scheduled flights between Tel Aviv and Kiev.

Herzog’s overture to Kravchuk, according to presidential aides, followed an approach to the Israeli president by Yisrael Dov Odessar, whom the aides referred to as “the rabbi of the Bratslav community.”

But the Bratslav Hasidic council dismissed Odessar as irrelevant, and Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel Frankel, elder of the community in Jerusalem, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “He is worthless; he represents no one: not even himself.”

Other haredi sources told JTA that Odessar has claimed for years to own a letter from Rabbi Nachman which was delivered to him in a dream.

These sources voiced amazement that Herzog could have made a public statement, at a state dinner, on the strength of corresponding and meeting with Odessar without ascertaining his credentials.

“We risked our lives to make pilgrimages to Uman during the hard years,” Frankel said, referring to the Communist period. “For us, the very thought of touching the tomb is anathema.”