Around ten thousand Hasidic Jews descended on the small town of Lezajsk, south east Poland, Tuesday, to celebrate the 223rd anniversary of the death of Rabbi Elimelech Weisblum (photo by Michael Hermon).

The annual celebration – one of the most important for the world’s Hasidics – takes place every year on the 21st of the Hebrew month of Adar, when the town of just 17,000 people is taken over by Jewish mass prayer sessions, dancing and signing.

Free guest houses are organized for those who arrive from the travelers who arrive from as far a field as Brazil and a Polish bakery is taken over, and it’s ovens especially kosherised to make the traditional flat breads.

Rabbi Weisblum was born in Galicia in 1717 and died in Lezajsk in 1786 and is one of the most influential Hasidic scholars. (pg)