Russia Threatens To "Retaliate" Against US Over Chabad Books Ruling

On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered Russia to pay fines of $50,000 per day until it returns the Schneersohn Collection of books and manuscripts to Chabad in Brooklyn. In response, Russia threatened to "retaliate" against the US if it tries to enforce that ruling.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn

On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered Russia to pay fines of $50,000 per day until it returns the Schneersohn Collection of books and manuscripts to Chabad in Brooklyn.

Lamberth is known as a flamboyant judge who issues unenforceable rulings against foreign governments. This ruling is no exception.

The books and manuscripts last belonged to a Schneersohn in 1940, when they were seized by the Nazis after Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe of that era, was rescued from them by German Military Intelligence and the US Government, which had not yet entered the war against Germany.

Infamously, just after the Germans handed over the great Chabad leader to the US just across the border in then-neutral Latvia, Schneersohn asked the Americans to go into Poland and save his silver, his household goods, and his books. The great rebbe did not ask the US to save any Jews – not even his own relatives.

Schneersohn had been a book collector since his preteen days. He collected broadly, favoring secular books like Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories translated into Yiddish. He also collected expensive Judaica, and had inherited his father's library, which had many old religious books. And these books, from the most secular to the most religious, meant more to him than th lives of Jews.

There are extant letters in US Government archives from Schneersohn to President Roosevelt written during the war after his arrival in New York. None of those letters ask Roosevelt to save Jews or bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz or anything at all like that.

Shortly after his arrival in New York, Schneersohn joined the Va'ad Hatzolah, the rescue organization set up by Orthodox and haredi rabbis. But he quit the Va'ad not long after joining it, upset that the Va'ad sometimes raised money on Shabbat when it was urgently needed for a rescue. He was also upset that he did not get every penny of the money he helped raise for the Va'ad back from it. He expected that if he raised $5,000 for it, then $5,000 would be available for him to use to try to rescue his own people rather than be used for whatever rescue was most pressing or carried the greatest likelihood of success.

Schneersohn then started his own rescue committee but it failed, largely because the only person affiliated with Chabad in any way who had the ability to save anyone was a non-Orthodox attorney in Washington, D.C. who had worked full time on Schneersohn's rescue. Chabad owed him about $5,000 but refused to pay – even though it had the money before Schneersohn launched his own failed rescue operation.

The attorney sent at least one telegram to Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, who headed Chabad's operations in the US before Schneersohn's arrival and who had hired the attorney, after Schneerohn's rescue begging to be paid and pointing out that his wife was pregnant and he needed the money so he could pay to keep his heat on. Jacobson, even though he had the $5,000 in the bank, never answered him and never paid. Schneersohn, for whom his followers claimed prophesy, didn't pay him, either.

Schneerohn closed his rescue organization soon after launching it. He took the money he had raised from New York Jews to save lives and used it to open a yeshiva in Crown Heights, Brooklyn – the yeshiva now commonly known as 770 after its address, 770 Eastern Parkway.

(Many of these details are documented in Bryan Mark Rigg's Rescued From The Reich, primarily in the footnotes.)

It is this moral failure of a man whose books Chabad is fighting Russia for.

Russia, upset with the judge's ruling, threatened to retaliate against the US because of it:

…It was not immediately clear what form the Kremlin’s threatened retaliation would take. In an earlier reaction to the dispute over the collection, which has now lasted decades, it forbade its state-run museums, including the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, to lend works to American museums.…

Today, much of the Schneerson [sic]  Collection is tucked into a well-lighted corner room of the Collection of Oriental Literature in an annex of the Russian State Library, across Mokhovaya Street from the main Lenin Library building.

Through the front door, and past several reading rooms, there is a hall dedicated to Yiddish and Hebrew studies with perhaps 20 desks. The Schneerson [sic]  Collection itself is held in its own room nearby, in 16 wooden bookcases with glass doors and locks that line the green walls.

Marina V. Melanina, the general director of the Center for Oriental Literature, said that about 30 to 60 visitors each month asked to see holdings in the collections, mostly Hasidic Jews recognizable in their traditional black coats and hats.

“Most of the interest is in tour groups who come to us, not only Russian ones but from America, not long ago from Australia; Israelis come too,” Ms. Melanina said. “For readers, there is not much demand. There are a couple of academics who order books in the catalog and read them.”…

Do the books belong to Chabad?

I personally believe the books belong to Schneerohn's descendants – meaning his only grandson Barry Gourarie's adopted daughters.

But they aren't fighting for possession, probably intimidated by the violence and near-constant threats of violence their father and grandmother, Schneersohn's oldest daughter, had to live through when the US part of the Schneersohn library was fought over in the 1980s.

Here's what their grandmother looked like after a Chabad yeshiva student beat her on a Shabbat after her brother-in-law Menachem Mendel Schneerson (a distant cousin of Rabbi Yosef Yitchok Schneersohn), who was then the Lubavitcher Rebbe, publicly ranted and raved against her and her son:

Chabad helped that yeshiva student flee the US for Israel, getting him to the airport on Shabbat and on  the first plane to Tel Aviv. He was never extradited and lives openly in a Chabad community there now as he has since the day he landed in the mid-1980s.

So absent Barry's daughters' claim for the books, I can see awarding them to Chabad, but only with strict controls that mandate full access to al researchers – even researchers Chabad doesn't like.

Otherwise the books will be kept in a way that prevents those who tell the truth about Chabad and expose its lies from using them.

Chabad is notorious in the academic world for blocking access to the books from the 1980s court case, even though it promised to make them fully available to researchers. And even if Chabad would suddenly change its ways and allow full access to all scholars, there's still the little problem of getting in and out of Crown Heights safely – something several of these researchers and academics fear they can no longer do.

So perhaps the books should be housed and cared for by a university library, with an academic committee in place to oversee it.

No one should think that Russia is a good actor here – it isn't.

The problem is, Chabad really isn't either.

[Hat Tip: SOTAH.]

Posts On Chabad And The Holocaust.

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Comments

[Ari]

The levying of the fines, potentially totaling more than $18 million a year but unlikely to be paid, added tension to Russian-American relations, which have become strained over the past year. Most recently, the countries have been at bitter odds over a Russian law banning adoptions of Russian children by American families, which itself was retaliation for an American law punishing Russians accused of violating human rights.

[Ari]

At a hearing this month, the Obama administration urged Judge Lamberth not to impose the fines, saying that they would further sour relations with Russia and imperil diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute. But in his decision, Judge Lamberth rejected those arguments and said he saw no reason to expect diplomacy to succeed.

[YTHM]

Here's what their grandmother looked like after a Chabad yeshiva student beat her on a Shabbat after her brother-in-law Menachem Mendel Schneerson (a distant cousin of Rabbi Yosef Yitchok Schneersohn), who was then the Lubavitcher Rebbe, publicly ranted and raved against her and her son

Someone should clearly tell the world that Chabad does not represent Torah Judaism.

[dd]

there are no planes who fly to israel on shabbat .

all israeli airports are closed on shabbat .

how can the israeli student be put on a plane on shabbat if no plane fly to israel on shabbat and the israeli airports are closed on shabbat ?

[Barry]

The airports are open of Shabbat. It is usually the best time to go.

One fears for the Yiddish translation of Sherlock Holmes because its author's English was old fashioned and may confuse 3rd grade English speakers. It must not be allowed near Satmar because they may misunderstand the following non standard word mean 'loudly exclaim' and act accordingly

"Watson ‘ejaculates’ twice as often as Sherlock Holmes in Conan Doyle’s stories. There are 23 ejaculations in total, with 11 belonging to Watson. On one occasion, Holmes refers to Watson’s ‘ejaculations of wonder’ being invaluable; on another, Watson ejaculates ‘from his very heart’ in the direction of his fiancée. Homes is only responsible for six ejaculations, although it is not clear which of the two men ejaculate in the passage below:

So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
The Man with the Twisted Lip, 1891

A chap called Phelps ejaculated three times during the story of The Naval Treaty. The only other ejaculator is Mrs St Clair’s husband, who ejaculates at her from a second-floor window."

[Shragi]

Here's what their grandmother looked like after a Chabad yeshiva student beat her on a Shabbat after her brother-in-law Menachem Mendel Schneerson (a distant cousin of Rabbi Yosef Yitchok Schneersohn), who was then the Lubavitcher Rebbe, publicly ranted and raved against her and her son

Someone should clearly tell the world that Chabad does not represent Torah Judaism.

Posted by: YTHM | January 18, 2013 at 08:05 AM

Really? What does "Torah Judaism" do to someone they don't agree with, or that their rebbe or rosh yeshiva rails against?

[987230/מ]

there are no planes who fly to israel on shabbat .

all israeli airports are closed on shabbat

What an enclosed world you live in, dd. Do you honestly think and believe that "israeli airports" are served solely by Israeli air carriers? Have you never heard of British Airways, United, EasyJet, Alitalia, Swiss? The list goes on, but I do not wish to overtax your underworked brain.

[skepticfrum]

Lamberth is known as a flamboyant judge who issues unenforceable rulings against foreign governments. This ruling is no exception.

Indeed. The judge craves and loves attention, his ruling, will be as good as used toilet paper. Read my lips...there is a HUGE sovereign immunity issue here that will shot down Judge Lamberth's opinion through the toilet faster than shit when you have diarrhea.

[Eli, what me messiah?]

"spokesman for Russia’s chief rabbi, Berl Lazar, said that although the rabbi was a leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, he had no authority over the Schneerson Collection."

There's an old mafia saying (the Sicilian one, not the Lubavitch branch): "I wasn't there, but if I was there then I was sleeping, and if I was sleeping, I was dreaming, and if I was dreaming, it was of being someplace else."

[Eli, what me messiah?]

The Putin mob doesn't like to be betrayed, especially by another mob that it helped.

Beral Lazar must be doing some serious sucking up to the Russian ministries these days, hoping not to wake up with a bloodied horse head at the foot of his bead....

[Fleishike Kishke]

I imagine Lazar has explained to Putin that the "Aguk" seemingly operates as a for-profit enterprise for a few extended families that don't even have the support of a majority of Lubavitch Cult Members (who in keeping with Schneerson's wishes continue to declare him the Christ). Despite this loony judge's ruling, there is no moral reason to give the library to these greedy boors. The Obama Administration opposes this ruling. The real question is why good people such as Jack Lew continue to lend credibility to this criminal cult at times such as Hanukkah, when the cult hijacks the ancient Jewish festival for their nauseating self-promotion.

[moshe]

fleishike kishka,
shmarya wouldnt be happy with you because dina dimalchuta dina so even though "the obama administration doesnt like it" the judge has ruled. (similar to how it makes no difference how many senators sign petitions for rubashkin) Now, since Shmarya would be upset at you you should probably say sorry :)

[Shmarya]

Posted by: moshe | January 19, 2013 at 06:35 PM

As I pointed out to you previously, dina d'malchuta dina is a halakhic construct that applies to Jews – not to non-Jews or non-Jewish foreign governments.

That you were very poorly educated in Chabad schools is clear.

Don't think that your stupidity and ignorance isn't noted by the rest of us.

[moshe]

I was referring to fleishike kishkas response not the russian governments. i assumed that kishka is from the usa. you have no idea where i went to school.
i was referring to this statement "Despite this loony judge's ruling, there is no moral reason to give the library to these greedy boors. The Obama Administration opposes this ruling." give him a lesson in the separation of powers and how the dina in malchuta works. you have no idea where i went to school.

[Shmarya]

I was referring to fleishike kishkas response not the russian governments. i assumed that kishka is from the usa. you have no idea where i went to school.
i was referring to this statement "Despite this loony judge's ruling, there is no moral reason to give the library to these greedy boors. The Obama Administration opposes this ruling." give him a lesson in the separation of powers and how the dina in malchuta works. you have no idea where i went to school.

Posted by: moshe | January 19, 2013 at 07:49 PM

I know what you're referring to and what you write makes no sense for the reasons I noted above.

As for where you were "educated," don't be too sure.

[Fleishike Kishke]

You don't owe Shmarya an apology when you disagree with him, only when you break the rules on (or misuse) his website. (Though you put a smiley face, so perhaps you were joking?) And of course legal and moral don't always coincide. I said there's no moral reason to give the books to Yoodle & Co. an "organizational" front that didn't even exist when JIS abandoned his collection. Books that JIS began collecting long before he took over the Chabad leadership. Books bought with donations the parasitic Schneersohns (such as all "Zadikim") conned away from the poor. Chabad convinced a few U.S. judges to see things their way, but Russia is almost-TOTALLY in the right. Maybe Chabad can make a case for the "movement's" manuscripts, (though I think it's wonderful that they can't have those) but the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes certainly doesn't belong to Yoodle and his many sons and in-laws.

[moshe]

"And of course legal and moral don't always coincide"
thats the idea everyone uses when the legal doesnt uphold their own personal claim of morality. Lubavitchers say that when it comes to Rubashkin (and also say looney judge) Satmars say it when it comes to Webberman and you say it when it comes to defending mother Russia :) (you must be very gezha). The subject of the 3 cases is irrelevant to this post I am neither equating nor analyzing them for the purpose of this post

[Fleishike Kishke]

"thats the idea everyone uses when the legal doesnt uphold their own personal claim of morality." That's why you have to follow legal rulings, even if you don't like or agree, (so long as you're subject to jurisdiction).

SMR & Webberman, Towers of Frumma Morality.