U.S. claims to the Schneerson library are provocative and spoil cultural ties with Russia as the sacred Jewish books are the unalienable property of the country, Russian Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev said on Friday.
Russian Minister Slams US Claims to Chabad Library
U.S. claims to the Schneerson library are provocative and spoil cultural ties with Russia as the sacred Jewish books are the unalienable property of the country, Russian Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev said on Friday.
The Schneerson Library is a collection of books and religious documents assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement over two centuries prior to World War II in Belarus. It is one of the main Jewish religious relics.
Part of the collection amassed by Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Later, about 25,000 pages of manuscripts fell into the hands of the Nazis, and were later seized by the Red Army and handed over to the Russian State Military Archive. This part of Schneerson’s Library is now kept in the archive of Lenin’s Library in Moscow.
The other part was taken out of the Soviet Union by Schneerson, who emigrated in the 1930s.
Since 1991, leaders of the Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jewish movement have been trying to regain possession of the library, saying that it was illegally held by the Soviet authorities after the war.
In 1991, a court in Moscow agreed to turn over the library to Chabad. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the ruling was ignored. The Russian government now says it wants to keep the archive for future scholars.
In 2010, a court in Washington confirmed the American Jewish community’s right to the library, but Russia called the court’s decision illegitimate. In late 2011, a U.S. court ruled that Russia must return about 12,00 books and 50,000 manuscripts from the library.
“The library forms part of the Russian library reserve and is inalienable. The history of its claiming by U.S. plaintiffs appears to us provocative,” Avdeyev said at a press conference.
The request by U.S. plaintiffs “aims to spoil the bilateral relations between our countries and to undermine the political reset,” the culture minister said.
The complex legal dispute over Schneerson Library is causing Russian art institutions to cancel scheduled loans of world-renowned artworks to U.S. art institutions. It has already turned into a full-scale diplomatic feud between the United States and Russia.
“Only when the 2011 decision of the U.S. court is set aside will a dialogue become possible,” Avdeev added.
Ransom
Between the lines it sounds like they’re really holding out to get a lot of U.S. money for the books and manuscripts, just like 5 Teves was also all about someone one wanting to sell the Rebbe’s books for money.
B O B
What’s with this Culture Minister, is he reneging the deal and turning back the clock to KGB Style dealing? Who does he think he is? The only people who will pore over these books is Chabad. It’ll just sit there for another century without its purpose of diseemination as the previous rebbe wanted. How cruel and insensitive and babyish to state that it will be a cold war of leader pitted against leader. Hand em’ over you….
dialogue , lol
They’re gonovim, and we’re being “provacative” by taking measures to get our stolen property back… Most of the seforim and ksavim were from Belarus, Riga and Poland. How are they Russia’s “inalienable” possessions? And what is the point of dialogue? There was no shortage of “dialogue” in the past and they didn’t budge, that’s why we had to resort to legal messures. So this minister says drop the lawsuit and then we can have dialogue… And why have the Russian’s stopped sending artworks to the U.S. for exhibits? Because they don’t want their artwork confiscated. They want to steal with impunity, but they’re quite concerned lest THEIR treasures be taken away from them… What rashoyim and mamzeyrim!! YM”S!
Who really has power
A countries wealth shouldn’t be composed of I’ll gotten gains, so the books should belong To, well who’s the boss anyway ?!!? Send the booksto Icarus chabad and the 770 replica if you don’t want the child cut in half per king solomons test and decision !?.
comment
All the theories are heresay. We need to find out the true intention, as this is against goodwill
Dave
Probably best to work with the guy actually… These aren’t Arabs. Russians will do anything even if it’s to their detriment so long as their honor remains intact.
As I understand it the Rebbe was all for pressuring them privately (with threats and whatnot) and but was very against holding public demonstrations against them etc as this would only strengthen their resolve.
So if they’re asking to remove the judgement (which will never help anyway), it’s probably a good sign and should be accommodated.
Milhouse
#1, It’s not about money, it’s about the principle that whatever the Soviets took belongs to the government. Because if they concede that it still belongs to the people from whom it was stolen, then everything they have is stolen.
ex-Moscow and glad to be ex-
Yes, the problem is that Russia has much stolen artwork of real monetary value from World War 2 and there are probably issues of Bolshevik confiscation of nobles’ property as well.
The real problem is that the Rebbe’s appointed representative for the sforim issue, Reb Yitzchok Kogan, gets little or no support from certain parties in Chabad in Russia. These powers that wanna be would not mind having the sforim remain in Moscow under their own supervision, so they could control access to the sforim and show that they are the parties who have the real power in Chabad. If those people used their connections as the Rebbe wanted, the sforim would be out a long time ago.
A. Engler Anderspn | Auckland
As a Chabad משפיע once related in a parable to me:
A man was walking down a mountain path, tightly wrapped in a winter parka. The Sun and Wind both quarrelled over which of them could get the man’s heavy coat off.
“Look at me,” said the Wind, as it proceeded to blow and blow ever harder. But rather than coming off, the coat was clutched ever tighter by the man, determined to stay warm.
Watching this transpire, the Sun interjected, proclaiming, “Watch this!” The Sun increased its radiance, and thereby the temperature, and the man willingly (and of necessity) took off his now-uncomfortable winter coat.
The same applies here to the Schneerson Library פרשה – the more that certain elements make public demands, thereby embarrassing the Ruskies, and making them lose face (as a previous poster has indicated), the more they will dig in and refuse.
But there will come a time when, perhaps through behind-the-scenes efforts, when the Russians will see it as in their best interests to be seen as restoring the Schneerson collection to its rightful owners. And it is for that moment that Chabad must wait if it is to see results.
Recall during the Free Soviet Jewry public campaigns in the United States how the public efforts, that only pressured the Russians, yielded little result, while behind-the-scence bargaining were, in contrast, effective.
Still, there are too many in Chabad who seem to be intoxicated on the idea of דידן נצח über alles and fail to let common sense prevail.
From one ex-moscow to another ex-moscow
All the public efforts will fail and will only make Russians angrier. The only way to deal with them is deal behind the scenes, privately. They do understand bribery really well, nothing else.
And also a question, if their court has decided to give books back, how come the books are still there. One should have run and grabbed the books and carry them on his back by a bag full, just to get them out of Russian possession. That was an opportunity of a life time.
Ex-Moscow #8
to 10:
I was there when they tried to do just that – take the books and run. The delegation of 4 Aguch representatives stayed 2 years, away from their families, and just a little while after I came, everyone except R’ Yitzchok left because they had responsibilities elsewhere. R’ Yitzchok, who only went to Israel because he could not live under Communism, was only too happy to return to a free Russia and spread Yiddishkeit while working to get the sforim out.
You know as well as I do that in the early 90s there was no central authority and the library just did as it pleased, blocking the removal of the books. Yeltsin was on our side, but he had no control. Putin is not our friend. He uses Chabad as a fig leaf to lie about the lack of anti-Semitism in Russia.
What do you think Reb Yitzchok is there for? Answer – to work behind the scenes. Problem is, someone who has more access to power is working behind the scenes to make a sleazy deal to build a library for the books in Russia. Reb Yitzchok is the only one who understands the mentality because he lived through the worst of it – and under Putin there is a swing back to that mentality. What is happening in the US is a clown show and it is immaterial. The problem is a fifth column in Chabad who puts his own desire to be close to power ahead of what the Rebbe wants. The fifth column, which is really made up of three people, wants the books in a library in Moscow, so they can gain more ill-gotten power in Chabad.