Kiev – Ukrainian City To Rename Streets After Lubavitcher Rebbe

Kiev – The Ukrainian city where the Lubavitcher Rebbe grew up has announced that it will soon name a street in his honor. The name of Rabbi Menachem-Mendel Shneerson, who led the Chabad-Lubavitch hasidic 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, according to 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 will also honor controversial historical figures such as Roman Shukhevich, who was linked to the murder of Jews during the Holocaust by Yad Vashem.

As the commander of the Nightingale Battalion, Shukhevich 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.