The Tombs of the Righteous and Cosmic Energy in Ukraine
Journal: Etnografia Polska
Year: 2023

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the town of Uman (Ukraine), an important Hasidic pilgrimage centre built around the tomb of the Jewish righteous Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, I explore the notion of energy employed by Uman’s non-Hasidic and non-Jewish inhabitants to describe the pilgrimages and their impact on the town. I argue that for some of the Uman residents energy, as a part of a wider set of ontological convictions, explains the agency of human and other-than-human actors, as well as th