Escalating the legal dispute between Russia and the United States over the Schneerson collection of Jewish texts, prosecutors in Moscow sought an arrest warrant for an American rabbi.
The request for an international arrest warrant against Rabbi Shalom Dov-Ber Levine, the director and curator at the Central Chabad-Lubavitch Research Library, was reported on Wednesday by the news site MK. He is wanted for “failing to return cultural property” to Russia.
According to the report, the move is connected to seven manuscripts from the Schneerson library, a historic collection of 12,000 books and 50,000 documents named for Rabbi Joseph I. Schneerson, who led the Chabad Hasidic movement until his death in 1950.
Russia’s state archive is holding the collection inside the Jewish Museum of Moscow. In 2013, a U.S. judge ordered Russia to pay $50,000 a day in fines for failing to honor a 2010 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to hand over to the New York-based movement the entire library.
But Russia insists the library is part of its national heritage. In 2014, a Russian court demanded that the U.S. Library of Congress hand back seven precious Jewish texts to Moscow – and, in a tit-for-tat ruling, said it should pay a massive fine for every day it delays.
The request for an arrest warrant is over those seven books, which Chabad loaned in 1991 to the Library of Congress, MK reported.
R’ Sholom Dovber Levin is a talmid chacham!
may Hashem punish the russians ימ”ש for their zilzul in kovod haTorah
It’s not (just) about R’ Levin it’s ALL about the Rebbe and the Rebbiem
Are there countries that will honor this arrest warrant?
russia at least, right
They did it now because there is another court cace next week in Washington about the sforim.
“Russia insists the library is part of its national heritage”
Since when is theft called heritage?!
And since when do thieves arrest the rightful ownwers?!
If they want to arrest him, then they also have to pay $50,000 a day.
Practically? What can we do and what does this mean for him and his family?
Right. Try to play political warfare with Russia. US fines the government. Russia goes after the individual. I feel bad for SBL, since this could cause him discomfort when traveling. I’m guessing this could only be resolved quietly, in a closed door, highroller meeting/deal.
With all the torture they did to us chassidim, Russia has the audacity to say that we are part of their culture!
we won one we will win again. the Russians lost against Yiddishkeit in 1991 and they will lose again in 2019
which Seforim are those seven?
If the Rebbe’s manuscripts are considered such a National Treausure by the Russian authorities, why was the Rebbe persecuted, arrested, tortured and exiled by the Russian authorities for learning, teaching, and disseminating this work during his tenure as leader of the Chabad movement?