A Lubavitcher Pesach in a Lubavitcher Town (End of Uman)

After over a month of delays, I've now managed to finish my final post in the Lubavitcher Pesach in Uman Series.
Click on the link to read on!



A Ukrainian sitting near our flat on 31 Lenina st.

The first day of Chol Hamoed we went off to Dnepropetrovsk (the sitting where the Lubavitcher Rebbe grew up) for the Kinus Torah  - Torah gathering - held in the synagogue by various Shluchim from across Ukraine.
So of we went from Cherkasy to Dnepr . . . something around a five hour drive.


By the bank of the Dnepr River with the other Pesach bochurim



Halfway through the trip, we came to Kremenchuk a Ukrainian town famed for it's Cigarette factories and fame in Chassidic lore as the home to many great Jews - and several songs composed in the town.

We stopped in the shliach's house, said l'chaim, sang the Kremenchuger Berel'ach, and continued on the way . . .


We managed to snap a shot by the city gate as well . . . the local who took the picture of us did such a lopsided job that no cropping would help . . . So I used this one instead


The shul in Dnepr


With the Rabbi's son.


Father and child

While I was at the kinus I met fellow blogger and Twitterer Itzhak Shier.
Unfortunately as it was shortly before Ma'ariv, we didn't have a chance to speak in any great depth.


The apartment the Rebbe lived in - I believe it's now an orphanage run by Chabad.


The Rebbe's father's shul - now a Yeshivah
Dnepr is fairly modern by Ukrainian standards . . . but to see the face of Denis, a boy from Uman adopted by the shliach, one would think he'd seen some lost ruins uncovered from the mists of time . . . or an interstellar cruiser. In short he was awed by the buildings . . .
    

 
. . .
On the return flight - once more packed with bochurim - we found, much to our pleasure, that we had the same flight crew as the way in.
When it became clear before we took off that the meals weren't Kosher for Passover (not as if any of the bochurim would have eaten the matzah balls in the first place) they held up the flight to bring on fruit for us.
In addition to the 40 plus bochurim, there was (l'havdil) a class of Ukrainian missionaries off to some conference in NY, and a Mennonite family connecting to Cleveland.
Soon several of the bochurim, were involved in a philosophical conversation with the Mennonite man and the two Catholic stewardesses . . . One stewardess enjoyed showing off her knowledge of Judaism from her study under the Jesuits in school, the other couldn't figure out how we could believe in G-d, but not the New Testament ("So let me get this straight - you believe in the Bible, but only part of it?" "You believe in G-d but not Yoizel? But you do go to Sunday Church right?" "But you believe in Yoizel right?"). The Mennonite, for his part backed up the Chassidic tradition of marring in the early Twenties (as did he) to the scoffing stewardesses.
Of note, I've often told people that the word Amish comes from a word in Pennsylvania Dutch related to the word Heimish in Yiddish . . . I was apparently incorrect, as Amish refers to the followers of Jakob Ammann.
It was a most interesting return flight.


Technorati Tags: Ukraine, Dnepropetrovsk, Chabad, The Rebbe, Airplanes, Mennonites, Photography, Travel, Pesach