Ukrainian city to rename street after Schneerson

Dnepropetrovsk is home to the world’s largest Jewish center and has a vibrant Jewish community.

By SAM SOKOL
A Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi reflects at the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson (photo credit: ADAM BEN COHEN / CHABAD.ORG)
A Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi reflects at the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
(photo credit: ADAM BEN COHEN / CHABAD.ORG)
The Ukrainian city where the Lubavitcher Rebbe grew up announced that it will soon name a street in his honor.
The name of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who led the Chabad- Lubavitch hassidic movement from his home in Brooklyn for the second half of the 20th century, was included on a list of streets soon to be renamed that was released recently by the Dnepropetrovsk municipality.
Dnepropetrovsk is home to the world’s largest Jewish center and has a vibrant Jewish community.
While several pro-western figures will also have streets named after them, the renaming scheme also will honor controversial historical figures such as Roman Shukhevych, who was linked to the murder of Jews during the Holocaust by Yad Vashem.
As the commander of the Nightingale Battalion, Shukhevych was responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews from the city of Lviv during a notorious 1941 pogrom.
Since the 2014 Maidan revolution, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainians have sought to erase symbols of the communist regime, knocking down statues of Lenin and renaming streets.