Diplomat Reveals His Involvement

By COLlive reporter

U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza was a guest this week of the Ohr Avner Chabad Jewish Day School in the city of Baku.

He was greeted by Chief Rabbi Shneor Segal, Rabbi Maty Lewis and the principal Smir Chalnrov.

Visiting during English class, the diplomat was impressed by the level of knowledge and the school’s curriculum.

Over a kosher meal in the lunch room, Bryza told the Chabad Shuchim that he’s been involved with the efforts to have the Schneerson Archive released from Russia.

Bryza joined U.S. Foreign Service in 1988 and served in Poland, on European and Russian affairs at the State Department and at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

He said California brothers Rabbi Chaim Nachum Cunin and Rabbi Yossi Cunin were in touch with him at the time about trying to have the library returned to Chabad Headquarters in Brooklyn.

The library is a collection of 12,000 books and 50,000 manuscripts assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbes over two centuries prior to World War II, and kept since in Russia.

Although a Moscow court ordered the library turned over to Chabad in 1991, Russia refuses to hand it over to its owners, keeping it in the Lenin Library.