Washington – The U.S.-Russia art wars are again center stage in Chabad v. Russian Federation, the case that triggered Russia’s current embargo on lending art to U.S. museums.
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In a decision issued Tuesday, the federal District Court in Washington, D.C. acknowledged that Russia’s fear that its art might be seized by Chabad, the Brooklyn-based Jewish Orthodox sect, is legitimate. The embargo, thus, is not without rationale.
Chabad is seeking to seize Russian property to satisfy a default judgment it obtained last year.
Russia has stated that if it sends art to the U.S. it fears it will be seized by Chabad to force it to comply with the judgment. As a result, over the last year, Russia has cancelled loans to such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and recalled other loans.
For the most part, legal experts and the press have denigrated Russia’s fears. Yet, in its just-issued opinion the federal court said otherwise. The court’s statements were in its decision denying Chabad’s motion for sanctions as premature and granting its motion to begin enforcement proceedings on the judgment obtained when Russia refused to acknowledge U.S. jurisdiction.
Unless this matter is settled, we will lose the opportunity to see some of the world’s greatest religious artwork and icons in the U.S. I hope they settle the matter of the seforim that chabad claims belongs to them.
U r strange heiligeh seforem r at stake and u worry for art?
who the h**l cares about seeing religious artwork. What is at stake is seeing these precious seforim
There are thousands of books, letters, and such that the Nazis stole from a warehouse that had been rented by the Rebbe Rashab [5th Lubavitcher Rebbe]. In a show of brotherly-evilness the Nazis handed the rare old books to the Soviets. There are letters from the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe from the 1940’s on the work he and the current Lubavitcher Rebbe were doing to try and recover them. Chabad had been trying to get these back for the past 70-odd years.
If one, G-d forbid wants to look at idolotrous works, just go to google and look them up. There are most likely many works here that have not been preserved anywhere else. The potential items here are a treasure trove for Judaism as a whole as the Chabad Rebbeim were known to be avid book buyers and collectors.
It would be wonderful to Russia to hand over items that realistically they are never going to use so we can grown from them.
Actually it belongs to all the chassidim. That was the main argument that won the case when a relative of Rabbi YY claimed to “inherit” the seforim. The chassidim argued that the seforim belonged to all of the chassidim, so there is no such thing as private inheritence
The seforim are in golus. May we see the redemption of holiness Now!