Ukraine City Witnesses First Jewish Burial in 60 Years

For the first time in 60 years, Jewish locals from around the Ukrainian city of Haditch gathered at the community’s historic cemetery to inter one of their own.

Attended by a public quorum of 10 men from the city of Konotop, the traditional ceremony saw the burial of a mother of a local Jewish community leader who passed away last Tuesday.

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Levi Raices, director of a boys yeshiva in Kharkov, presided over the ceremony, which took place adjacent to the resting place of the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

After the burial, the son of the deceased reportedly donned the prayer boxes known as tefillin for the first time in his life.