Have hundreds of devout Jews recently been stuck on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border on the way to Ukrainian Uman? No, that's not true: The video is 3 years old and was shot on the neutral territory between the countries during the COVID-19 travel restrictions.
The story originated from a TV program on Belarusian TV channel Belarus 1 and reappeared as a TikTok video (archived here) where it was published by djianuyldxu on September 17, 2023 with the hashtags under the video (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff) #pilgrims#hasids#2021#belarus#novayaguta#ukraine#uman#fourdays#attheborder#🤔🤔🤔
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Sep 22 08:00:33 2023 UTC)
Hasids (or Hasideans) are members of a pre-Christian Jewish sect who are devoted to Judaic Law. They particularly honor Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and tend to perform a spiritual journey to the town of Uman in Ukraine, the burial place of Nachman of Breslov, the founder of the Breslov Hasidic sect. Rosh Hashanah dates vary and typically occur in the late summer/early autumn.
In 2020 the Ukrainian Government restricted entry into the country from August 28 to September 28 as a precautionary measure of spreading COVID-19 infection. Belarusian border control permitted entry, which led to the pilgrims getting stranded in the neutral territory between the two countries.
