The battle over Rabbi Nachman's tomb - Haaretz

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Thu., January 10, 2008 Shvat 3, 5768

Israel Time: 22:48 (EST+7)

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The battle over Rabbi Nachman's tomb

By Tom Segev

Tags: Rabbi Nachman

During his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert paid a condolence call to a family of followers of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Olmert asked courteously if there was anything he could do for the mourners.

Fortunately, they asked only this: that if he should ever become prime minister, he would act to bring Rabbi Nachman's remains from the city of Uman, in Ukraine, for reburial in Jerusalem. Olmert promised.

The Prime Minister's Office was recently involved in bringing the remains of the family of Theodor Herzl to Israel. It was a good story. With the country's 60th anniversary of independence approaching, Olmert wants something even more beautiful, and what could be more beautiful, more Jewish, more stately and more appropriate for Independence Day than interring the remains of Rabbi Nachman on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem? Everyone will be happy at this funeral, and happiness, after all, is one of the main tenets of Rabbi Nachman's doctrine.

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The Bratslav Hasidim are indeed a community of happiness, although when we speak of "Bratslav Hasidim," it is necessary to be precise: they are not all cut from the same cloth. Israelis are mostly familiar with those who dance at traffic lights with boom boxes and paint the mysterious sequence "Na - Nach - Nachman" on walls. They are the ones who want Rabbi Nachman's remains to be interred in Jerusalem.

Alongside the populist branch are those identified with the World Breslov [Bratslav] Center; they do not want Olmert to interrupt their rebbe's rest. He was buried in Uman at his explicit instructions. His tomb projects magic that is liable, heaven forbid, to dissipate if it is moved; and anyway, who authorized the government of the Zionist state to seize control of his heritage?

Rabbi Nachman's tomb attracts about 30,000 Hasidim a year, most of them from Israel and the United States. With their numbers rising all the time, the Hasidim decided to expand the synagogue adjacent to the tomb. That was about 10 years ago. In Ukraine these things are done - how to put it? - the way they are in the Jerusalem Municipality, more or less: by a fusion of big capital and government. The Hasidim found a contractor who is also a member of parliament, Petro Kuzmenko by name. He is a member of the party whose leader is now the country's prime minister. A goy with a Jewish partner.

Agreement was reached on a project that was to cost $5 million. In return for the plans, the Bratslavers agreed to pay $195,000; they gave $95,000 as a down payment. The Ukrainian parliamentarian sent plans, but the Hasidim were dissatisfied and said they would pay no more.

However, it then emerged that in their naivete they had signed a contract obliging them to pay $1,000 for every day of payment arrears, and before they could say Na - Nach - Nachman the debt had swelled to $3 million, and the holy tomb was liable to become the goy's personal property.

Distraught, the Bratslav Hasidim tried to reason with the man. They agreed to give him $100,000, $200,000, $350,000; the goy wanted $3 million. The negotiations broke down. Tension rose in the Prime Minister's Office. Who said there are no happy funerals?

Then the Bratslavers hired the services of attorney Gilad Corinaldi from Jerusalem, who specializes in crisis management. Corinaldi grasped immediately that courts in Ukraine are not the ideal arena for Jews. He flew to Kiev to talk to the Israeli ambassador, Zina Kalay-Kleitman. God was on his side, and minutes before the lawyer was received by the ambassador it was announced on the radio that Ukraine's president, Victor Yushchenko, had accepted an invitation to visit Israel.

The ambassador did not find it difficult to understand that the people of Israel can under no circumstances give up the holy grave; the lawyer warned that tens of thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) demonstrators were liable to be waiting for Yushchenko at the airport, that his whole visit might be dominated by their protests, that no one would talk any longer about Ukraine being admitted to the European Union one day, and who knows - even The New York Times might take an interest in the story. The ambassador, like all ambassadors, promised to report to her government.

In the meantime, Corinaldi made contact with someone who knows someone in the bureau of President Yushchenko. Yushchenko himself called the goy parliamentarian. He is not from his party, but still, a call from the president is something. Afterward, attorney Corinaldi got a call from Yushchenko's bureau asking if he would be so kind as to make time to meet with the president during his visit to Jerusalem. To the meeting, in the King David Hotel, the lawyer brought Rabbi Daniel Dayan, a Hollywood actor who became religiously observant and is a senior Bratslav figure. Dayan did what Jews always did when they went to talk to the paritz: He gave Yushchenko a fine silver goblet. Mrs. Yushchenko, who is also of American origin, acted as interpreter. Both of them were properly impressed.

The battle for the tomb is now under way on several levels. All the Bratslav Hasidim wanted to rescue it from the goy's clutches; some of them wanted to move the remains to Israel. So does the Prime Minister's Office. Yushchenko, one can assume, wanted only quiet, and the city fathers of Uman did not want to lose the tens of thousands of tourists; they are planning to build a new airport not far from their city.
This week, the government of Ukraine declared the tomb of Rabbi Nachman a national heritage site. On the occasion of the tomb's rescue, a Foreign Ministry delegation went to Uman to celebrate its victory over the Prime Minister's Office. Corinaldi says: "Those who did not want Jewish ownership of Rebbe Nachman?s grave received it under Israeli,Ukrainian and international aegis."

Winners: Bratslav Hasidim, Uman tourist promoters, Foreign Ministry. Losers: that goy and the Prime Minister's Office. The goy may get a few more dollars, but he will have to make do with that. The Prime Minister's Office is not giving up easily: It has asked Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef whether there is any halakhic impediment to transferring the holy remains to Jerusalem. One way or another, a proud state like Ukraine is not now likely to give up a national asset such as Rabbi Nachman's tomb.

Moses in Jerusalem

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of Israel's independence, prime minister Menachem Begin sent a message to Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek asking his opinion of how the event should be marked. Less than a year after Begin's election, which ousted Labor after 29 years, Kollek was still finding it hard to come to terms with the change. He therefore suggested that the prime minister ask the Pope to lend Israel Michelangel's sculpture of Moses, which would be placed at the site of the Western Wall.

The Prime Minister's Office, not realizing at first that Kollek was making fun of Begin, made cautious overtures to the religious public about whether the statue, with the horns on its forehead, would offend their sensibilities. Why should they be upset, Kollek said in a message to Begin; after all I did not suggest asking for the statue of David, who is not circumcised. Kollek was a rare bird among the country's founding fathers: He had a sense of humor. This week marked the first anniversary of his death

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1.	Avoda Zara	17:47	\|	David	05/01/08

2.	It`s the economy, stupid.	19:42	\|	Nora	05/01/08

3.	Go figure	20:48	\|	Simcha	05/01/08

4.	This sounds just like something out of	21:18	\|	D Hirod	05/01/08

5.	Rabbi Nachman	21:27	\|	Connie	05/01/08

6.	Kollek-The Paid British Informer	07:43	\|	Ben Israel	06/01/08

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