Unknown assailants robbed $50,000 from Haredi Jews last week at the Uman headquarters of a nonprofit group that works to accommodate the tens of thousands of followers of the Breslover rebbe who will pour into the city for the High Holidays in September, Ukrainian authorities said.
The Ukrainian newspaper Segodnia reported that the money was meant to create better infrastructure for the pilgrims.
Natalia Taran, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s spokeswoman for the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine, was quoted as saying the assailants physically attacked at least one worker of the group helping the pilgrims.
The robbers took a safe containing the money after beating a local security guard.
Last week, the mayor of Uman ordered a halt to earthwork near the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman following protests by Haredim who feared that new earth brought in by contractors may contain human bones that would render the gravesite impure according to the Orthodox Jewish view.
Local Jews arranged for earth free of bone fragments to be delivered instead, according to the website.