Rosh Hashana Kibbutz - Under Communism

Under Communism

The Rosh Hashana pilgrimage ground to a halt with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which sealed the border between Russia and Poland. Uman became a "closed city" and foreigners were strictly prohibited from entering. Rabbi Yitzchok Breiter, a Breslover Hasid in Poland who drew thousands of his countrymen closer to the Hasidut in the 1920s and 1930s, established a Rosh Hashana kibbutz in Lublin for their benefit. Hasidim who emigrated to Israel established Rosh Hashana kibbutzim in Jerusalem and in Meron (the latter at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai), which continue to this day. Later, other Rosh Hashana kibbutzim were established in New York and in Manchester, England.

Shmuel Horowitz, a native of Safed, Mandate Palestine, was the last foreign citizen to sneak across the Polish border into Russia around 1929. He participated in three Rosh Hashana kibbutzim in Uman before he was discovered and arrested for illegal entry. After spending three months in a Soviet prison, Horowitz was released with the intervention of the Chief Rabbi of Mandate Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook, and returned in 1933.

Despite the Communist ban on public prayer gatherings, Breslover Hasidim in Russia continued to gather clandestinely every Rosh Hashana during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1934, the Soviets ostensibly granted permission for 28 Hasidim to travel to Uman for Rosh Hashana. In fact, it was a ruse to discover their identities — 16 were murdered while still in Uman and 12 were exiled to Siberia. Only four of the exiles survived. In 1936, the authorities shut down the kloyz built by Reb Noson and turned it into a metalworking factory.

The Rosh Hashana kibbutz was relocated to a rented apartment in 1936 and 1937. The last kibbutz before World War II was held in 1938. Twenty-seven Hasidim risked their lives to participate in this gathering.

World War II and the Holocaust decimated the numbers of Breslover Hasidim living in Russia. The Rosh Hashana pilgrimage resumed on a drastically smaller scale in 1948, when 11 Hasidim independently traveled from cities throughout Russia to Uman for Rosh Hashana. From then until the 1970s, when most of the remaining Hasidim were permitted to emigrate to Israel, only between 9 and 13 Hasidim braved the annual trip. They were often forced to change the location of their prayer services from year to year to escape discovery by the authorities.

Beginning in the 1950s, Michel Dorfman in Moscow became the official organizer of the Rosh Hashana kibbutz. Hasidim from throughout Russia would contact him for details about each year's event, and he wrote letters to others, encouraging them to continue this practice of being with Rebbe Nachman for Rosh Hashana despite the long journey and the threat of government surveillance.