Levi Yitzchok Bender - Return To Uman

Return To Uman

Bender risked his life to return to Uman again for the Rosh Hashana pilgrimage of 1938. By this time the Soviet authorities had clamped down on religious observance by closing down the Breslover synagogue in Uman and converting it into a metalworking factory, and keeping close surveillance on illegal prayer gatherings. Bender and another 26 Hasidim from outside Uman risked their lives to spend Rosh Hashana in that city. To avoid being recognized in the Breslover minyan (now being held in a private apartment), Bender went to the house of a friend shortly before the holiday began and asked for permission to pray in the man's basement.

At 7:00 on the morning before Rosh Hashana, he slipped out to Rebbe Nachman's gravesite for a few minutes to recite the Tikkun HaKlali (the "General Remedy" which is customarily recited at the gravesite). He was spotted by another Jewish man known to be a government informer. Bender pleaded with the man not to report him, but as he walked back to his friend's house, he noticed the informer following him. Since he was familiar with all the back roads of Uman, he managed to shake him off his trail.

The informer went straight to the police, who mounted a citywide search for Bender on Rosh Hashana. Though they entered the house in which he was hiding and searched all the rooms, including the darkened basement, they overlooked the one room in which he hid.

As soon as the holiday was over, several Hasidim helped Bender escape the city by bandaging his entire head, leaving only his eyes uncovered, and accompanying him on a night train to Kiev. Bender's wife was on the same train. She debarked at a small village called Khrystynivka (Charsinvaka), located two stations away from Uman, purchased two tickets for Kiev, and reboarded the train. Bender met his wife in the Kiev station and disposed of the tickets he had bought in Uman. But the informer, who was on the same train following Mrs. Bender, spotted Reb Levi Yitzchok without his disguise in the station and called over a policeman. Though Bender was arrested and interrogated, he insisted he had not traveled from Uman but from Khrystynivka. The police believed him and released him. Bender spent the war years in Siberia and the post-war years in Poland. He became rabbi of the displaced-persons camp at Bad Reichenhal, Germany.