- September 27, 2025
- 12:24 pm
- World News
Israeli carriers El Al and Israir announced on Friday, September 26, 2025, special flights to help return hundreds of pilgrims stranded in Romania after the annual pilgrimage to the Ukrainian city of Uman.
El Al has scheduled a 300-seat flight from Bucharest to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv for Saturday evening, after the end of Shabbat. Israir added that starting Sunday morning, it will operate three flights for 540 passengers from Bacau and Bucharest airports to Israel.
Approximately 40,000 people, mostly Israelis, participated in the pilgrimage to Uman, where the Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) is buried. This event takes place annually on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which was celebrated last week from Monday evening to Wednesday evening. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the pilgrimage site can only be reached through neighboring countries.
Several hundred Hasidim who traveled to Uman via Tulcea in Romania were left without flights back to Israel with foreign airlines due to congestion and significant delays at the border, noted El Al.
The decision on special flights resulted from discussions between Transport Minister Miri Regev, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Shas party leader Aryeh Deri.
The pilgrimage to Uman sparked controversy this year after the Shas party and its Ashkenazi counterpart, United Torah Judaism, sought from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the possibility for yeshiva students avoiding conscription to participate without detention at Ben Gurion Airport.
The request arose from the Israeli army’s pursuit of draft dodgers, who also face travel restrictions abroad. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara stated that the proposed privileges for Hasidim traveling to Uman would be illegal.
The pilgrimage also faced criticism in the context of the war in Gaza, with critics expressing outrage that the government subsidizes security and other measures for the pilgrimage abroad amid the ongoing conflict, whose participants often do not serve in the army.
The Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage was established by Rabbi Nachman’s students according to his instructions, so his followers would always be with him in Uman for the holiday, with which he felt a special connection, notes the Jewish Encyclopedia of Herzog College’s Da’at.
Rabbi Nachman founded a branch of Hasidism, representing a branch of Jewish mysticism founded by Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760). He became known in Breslov — the Yiddish pronunciation of the modern Ukrainian city of Bratslav — and moved to Uman a few months before his death, wishing to pray for the souls of Jews killed in pogroms.