Chabad May Sue To Recover Library, Says Federal Judge

Earlier this week, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States ("Chabad") to recover sacred, irreplaceable Jewish books and manuscripts from the Russian Federation. On November 9, 2004, Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive, asserting violations of international law and seeking the return of both a "Library" and "Archive" of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and manuscripts. The Library was seized by the Soviets during the Bolshevik Revolution. The Archive was stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War and placed in a Gestapo-controlled castle. In 1945, the Soviet Army captured the castle and took the Archive as "war booty" to Moscow, where it remains at the Russian State Military Archive.

The United States District Court denied the Russian Federation's and other defendants' motion to dismiss the claims to recover the Archive. Chabad is represented by attorneys Marshall B. Grossman, Seth M. Gerber and Jonathan E. Stern of Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP. Chabad is also represented by attorneys Nathan Lewin and Alyza D. Lewin of Lewin & Lewin, LLP, and Wm. Bradford Reynolds of Howrey, LLP.  "The Court's decision helps to ensure that sacred Jewish manuscripts and other treasures that were stolen by the Nazis and then by the Soviet Army should be returned to Chabad, their rightful owner in the United States," said attorney Marshall B. Grossman. The Court held that "Nazi Germany's seizure of the Archive clearly violated international law as it was discriminatory, not for a public purpose, and did not result in payment of just compensation." "In addition, the Soviet Army's 1945 seizure and appropriation of the Archive from its Nazi captors as spoils of war was also a taking in violation of international law."

In 1990, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, designated a committee consisting of Rabbis Boruch Shlomo Cunin, Shalom Dovber Levine, Yosef I. Aronov, Yitzchak Kogan to obtain the return of the Chabad's sacred books and manuscripts. Chabad Delegation member Rabbi Cunin stated that "Chabad is committed to recover all of its religious books, manuscripts, and personal effects that have been stolen by the Russian Federation and its predecessors." Rabbi Cunin also stated, "[t]hese sacred religious books, manuscripts, and personal effects belong to Chabad and its followers, not a foreign government."  The Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (1880-1950) was arrested and sentenced to death for his commitment to Judaism in 1927 by the Soviets. He ultimately fled to Poland and was granted permission by the Soviets to take the Archive with him. The Sixth Rebbe survived Nazi Germany's attack and capture of Warsaw in World War II and escaped to the United States, but he was forced to leave the Archive behind. The Court noted that the Sixth Rebbe's efforts, starting in 1939 and lasting until his passing, to recover the books and manuscripts he left behind when fleeing the German invasion of Poland, including the Archive, demonstrate that he never gave up on recovering the Archive for the benefit of Chabad-Lubavitch.

The Court also noted that "[m]ore recently, multiple letters addressed to Russian Presidents Yeltsin and Putin, signed by all one hundred United States Senators and by over three hundred members of the United States House of Representatives, as well as a letter from the State Department expressing its concern about the situation, comprise significant evidence that there is a strong public interest in the United States in the outcome of this litigation."

Despite years of political efforts, the Russian Federation has failed to return the Library and the Archive to Chabad.

“There is much joy in the global world of Lubavitch over this ruling,” said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, secretary to the Rebbe and Chairman of the Lubavitch worldwide Educational and Social Services divisions. “Ironically,” he observed, “this favorable ruling comes almost 20 years to the day of Chabad’s victory in another legal action concerning the ownership of its much treasured library at Lubavitch World Headquarters which was being challenged at the time.”  In a landmark case, the US District Court of the Eastern District, in Brooklyn, ruled in December of 1987, that Chabad’s ownership of that library was inviolable, and that Chabad had full and unencumbered possession of the library.

–Lubavitch.com / Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP