Ukraine halts construction near massacre site

Ukrainian authorities agreed to suspend hotel construction near the site of an 18th-century massacre of Jews. The decision to halt construction in the town of Uman was announced Feb. 22. Meir Porush, leader of  the Israeli political party United Torah Judaism, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry had protested the work on a new hotel some 300 feet from the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, where the Massacre of Uman took place in 1768, according to Bratslav Chasidim. Jewish leaders want the site classified as a memorial heritage site. Thousands of Chasidic pilgrims visit Uman, a manufacturing center in central Ukraine that is home to some 95,000 people, around Rosh HaShanah and Purim to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman, a prominent Chasidic leader who died in 1810.