History of Rebbe Nachman’s Gravesite in Uman

History of Rebbe Nachman’s Gravesite in Uman – Speaker: Rabbi Nasan Maimon. Lecture presented at Adath Yisroel, Hendon, London, on the 21st of Shevat, 5778 (2018-02-05).

• 00:00 Introduction – Rabbi Reuven Atlas shlit”a.
• 03:23 On one of his journeys, Rebbe Nachman passed through Uman.
• 04:59 Account of the Khmelnytsky massacre in Uman, 1768, four years before the birth of Rebbe Nachman. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men, women, and children were brutally tortured, murdered, and buried in two shallow, mass graves. They were given the chance to escape if they would give up their faith, but they all, even the youngest children, refused.
• 07:33 Rebbe Nachman’s last Rosh HaShanah.
• 09:42 The gathering for Rosh HaShanah in Uman after Rebbe Nachman’s passing. Reb Yechiel Michel Dorfman zal’s efforts keep the minyan alive even through the years of Stalinist oppression.
• 10:38 In 1965, the first group of Americans arrives to pray at Rebbe Nachman’s gravesite.
• 11:25 Destruction of the Ohel (structure over the gravesite) by the Nazis.
• 12:55 *1978-1979 – Rebbe Nachman’s grave site was slated for demolition in the Kremlin’s “Five Year Plan.” The Breslov community is alerted and Reb Michel Dorfman zal is appointed as its spokesperson to travel to the U.S. to try to save the tziyun.
• 16:49 Reb Michel prepares for his mission by praying at the Kosel.
• 18:04 Rabbi Nasan Maimon meets Reb Michel in New York in late May, 1979.
• 19:01 Reb Michel Dorfman and Rav Nasan Maimon meet with the Satmar Rebbe zal. Reb Michel recounts how he was the shaliach appointed to daven for the Satmar Rebbe in Uman about 11 years previously. [The Satmar Rebbe suffered the stroke in February 1968, and Reb Michel visited him in the early summer of 1979.]
• 25:22 Rabbi Dorfman and Rabbi Maimon meet with HaRav Moshe Feinstein zal and receive his blessing for the mission to save Rebbe Nachman’s grave site, rather than have it moved.
• 27:37 Reb Michel and Rav Nasan request help from the Lubovitcher Rebbe in saving Rebbe Nachman’s tziyun. The Lubovitcher Rebbe advises them to contact Rabbi Pinchas Teitz zal. Rabbi Teitz offers to contact then-President Jimmy Carter via White House Counsel Robert Lifschutz.
• 31:37 Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan zal is consulted and drafts the petition for Carter to present at the upcoming S.A.L.T. (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) conference in Vienna where he will meet with then-Soviet Prime Minister Brezhnev.
• 33:52 *Rabbi Moshe Sherer zal, Chairman of Agudath Israel of America, relates how Rebbe Nachman “repaid” the effort that Rabbi Sherer put in on behalf of the mission to save the grave site.
• 36:29 Rabbi Pinchas Teitz and Rabbi Nasan Maimon travel to the Ukraine.
• 40:45 Recent years in Uman, since Ukraine became independent. The account of Dr. Joyce Starr, and aide to former President Jimmy Carter. The expansion of the Rosh HaShanah gathering.

The Tziyun of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine. Memorial to Rabbi Tzvi Aryeh Rosenfeld zal.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev sign the S.A.L.T. II Treaty, Vienna, 23rd Sivan 5739 (June 18, 1979).