Rapsi

US Offers Russia Deal on Return of Seforim

The US State Department has offered Russia to settle the dispute over the Schneerson library “by exchange,” Chabad’s lawyer Nathan Lewin said in court.

On Monday, the Federal District Court for Washington postponed the consideration of the lawsuit filed by the Chasidic community against Russia indefinitely.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1927. He took his collection with him to Latvia and Poland, where he left the books after Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany. The collection was taken to Germany and confiscated by the Red Army in 1945. He passed away in 1950 without leaving instructions regarding the collection.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to order the Congressional Library to return seven books from the collection of rare Judaist books, also known as the Schneerson Collection. The books, now part of the Russian State Library’s Oriental Literature Center, have been on loan to Washington since 1994 as an international interlibrary loan.

On January 16, the US District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Russia to pay fines of $50,000 per day until it returns the books and manuscripts to Chabad.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry described the ruling as unlawful provocation.

8 Comments

  • declasse' intelelctual

    #1 True!!!
    but under International law, Chabad has no legal claim; however, there is a personal claim they can advance and under that basis they can request return under the principle of misappropriated property. International Law deals with inter-nation-state relations. A country can represent individuals with claims and grievances, but the Permenant Court and International Law gives no creidence to their claims. If Russia decides to honor the claim, it is because they so desire Levin not withstanding.

    • isn't it that by accepting to start

      the court case in the USA, they tacitly or openly agreed that even though under intentional law they wouldn’t need to give it back, that they would if they lose?

  • kiruv in Moscow

    They wouldn’t give bk a building in Moscow that had been a shul, until there was a sit in. This was close to 20′ yrs ago. They got the building back.
    Since the iron curtain fell , over 20 yrs now, they hv been trying to get the seforim. bk. Rabbi Lazar has been there since the beg , and also wants them bk. And I’m not a Lubavitcher.

  • Legal Definition of Exchange

    Exchange means to legally exchange the possession of the seforim from Russia to Lubavitch. In layman’s terms: Russia gives is the seforim and we get them.

    • Milhouse

      Um, no. That’s nonsense. Exchange means the USA gives Russia something (presumably a significant art work or something similar) in return for Russia giving Aguch back its property. In other words, “pidyon shvuyim” in the old-fashioned sense, or in modern English, ransom. What’s in it for America is that it makes the diplomatic crisis go away.