Fining Russia to retrieve the Rebbe’s library

A United States federal court is fining Russia $50,000 a day for refusing to return what is known in Chabad circles as the “Rebbe’s library,” in a long running case pitting Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States against Russia.

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued the civil contempt sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture, the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archive.

The fine to the Russian government was for not complying with a court order of July 30, 2010 to return books and manuscripts confiscated by the Russians during the Bolshevik Revolution and World War II.

Utilizing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Chabad sued the Russian government in 2004 to reclaim what is also known as the Schneerson Collection, the religious books, manuscripts, documents, artifacts and other materials belonging to the fifth and sixth rebbes. Until 2009, the Russian government was involved in the case to determine if the U.S. courts could decide the matter. When the court ruled in favor of Chabad, the Russian government withdrew. About a year after the 2010 decision, Chabad requested civil contempt sanctions, motivating the Russian government to begin discussions towards a settlement with Chabad’s attorneys. The sanctions were suspended but now reinstituted when the talks did not bear fruit.

Chabad’s legal team issued a press release in response to complaints by the Russian government. They noted that U.S. federal courts have jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in claims involving property illegally taken by a foreign government and can fine these foreign states. Also, the Russian claim that the Chabad collection is a Russian “national treasure” that it was recovered property abandoned by Chabad, is not correct, according to the lawyers’ statement. Rather, the fifth rebbe stored the library in a Moscow warehouse in 1917 when fleeing the Germans and it was taken by the Russians and, despite requests, never returned to the rebbe. The sixth rebbe was arrested in the then Soviet Union for establishing Jewish schools, beaten, sentenced to death by firing squad in 1927. His death sentence was set aside and he was instead exiled thanks to international pressure. When he fled from the German onslaught in 1939, the Nazis took the archive to Poland where it was in turn seized by the Soviets in 1945.

The court ruled in 2010 that “the takings of the Library and the Archive by defendants and their predecessor regimes were not for a public purpose, were discriminatory, and occurred without just compensation to plaintiff,” and called on Russia to “surrender . . . the complete collection of religious books, manuscripts, documents and things that comprise the ‘Library’ and the ‘Archive.’” Chabad has assured the court that it will not interfere with any Russian art exhibitions and will not link this case to any other Russian art or cultural displays.

The Library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad would not comment on the case.

Chabad’s main base is in 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York and has over 4,500 banches worldwide. It is the largest Jewish organization in the world today.