Agudas Anshei Chabad v. Russian Federation (2006)
Eliyahu Asher Prero, Esq./American Jewishprudence
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) establishes that United States courts cannot decide a case involving a foreign country unless a specific exception applies. Prior articles discussed the “State Sponsored Terrorism Exception,” the legal basis for the landmark case Flatow v. Iran. This article highlights the broad immunity foreign sovereigns — such as the Russian Federation — continue to enjoy under the FSIA.
In 2006, Judge Royce Lamberth (D.C. Circuit) presented the factual record of Chabad’s lawsuit against Russia from Chabad’s perspective.
Background of Chabad and the Collection
Chabad is a nonprofit religious corporation established under the laws of New York. It is part of a broader Jewish religious movement called Chabad Chasidism, which originated in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Russian Empire. The movement’s central figures are the “rebbes,” spiritual leaders, generally from the Schneersohn family.
At the heart of this dispute lie two sets of religious property: the Library and the Archive.
The Library: This collection comprises over 12,000 books and 381 manuscripts established and maintained by the first five Chabad rebbes. Dating back to 1772, the Library holds great religious significance within Chabad. The books and manuscripts were collected over the centuries by successive rebbes and have been integral to the movement’s teachings.
The Archive: This collection comprises over 25,000 pages of handwritten teachings, correspondence and records from Chabad rebbes. It has been passed down through generations of rebbes.
In the Gourary case, the court cited testimony emphasizing the archive’s significance: “[T]he ksovim that are original manuscripts or manuscripts used by the Rebbe himself, assume a sanctity about them, that they are kind of the essential legacy. I would compare it to the crown jewels. It’s something concrete that is passed on in a symbolic way, and in a way incorporates in itself both the sanctity, the very presence, the very personality of the Rebbe himself.” Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Gourary, (E.D.N.Y. 1987).
The Gourary court also noted that the “family relationship between the … succeeding Lubavitcher Rebbes may explain why … the distinction between property of the religious institutions of Chabad Chasidism and the personal property of the Rebbe is not a distinction which has had to be made with any regularity in the movement’s history.” Id.
History of the Collection’s Displacement
The conflict over the Library and Archive have persisted for over a century. In 1915, Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer, the fifth rebbe, fleeing from the advancing German army during World War I, took some of the library’s books and manuscripts with him and sent the rest to be stored in a private warehouse in Moscow. In 1920, the Soviet Department of Scientific Libraries took possession of the Library, moving it to a state facility. The Soviet Library authorized its return to the sixth rebbe in 1921, but Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson lacked the funds to retrieve it.
The Russian defendants produced a letter from the sixth rebbe, dated 1922, to the director of the Rumyantsev Museum, asking that the Library be returned to him. Rabbi Shneerson’s letter referred to the 1921 resolution and acknowledged that he “did not have the funds to remove the books from the Department of State Libraries within the time frame specified in the resolution.”
Additionally, testimony in the Gourary decision revealed that while the sixth rebbe attempted to repurchase the library from the Soviet government the price demanded was unaffordable. “The large library of the Fifth Rebbe … inherited by Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, was confiscated by the communist government in the Soviet Union. According to Mrs. Gourary [the Sixth Rebbe’s daughter,] the Sixth Rebbe attempted to repurchase the Library, but the Soviet government ‘wanted too much money. My father didn’t have the money, so he couldn’t redeem the Library.’” Gourary, at 1466. As a result, the library remained with the Soviet authorities.
The sixth rebbe was arrested in 1927 and sentenced to death — though he was later allowed to leave Russia due to international pressure. He moved to Latvia, then to Poland, bringing the archive with him. After the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, the rebbe fled to the United States in 1940, unable to bring the Archive. Some of the Archive arrived in New York in 1941, but most remained in Poland, was seized by the Nazis and later captured by the Soviet Army in 1945. The Soviet Army transferred the Archive to the Russian State Military Archives. A portion of the Archive was found in Poland that was not taken by the Soviet Army, and the Polish government returned that portion to Chabad in 1974.
In 1990, Chabad established the Jewish Community of Lubavitch Chassidim within the Soviet Union. In September 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev allegedly ordered the return of the Library to Chabad. However, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, giving way to the Russian Federation. Despite this transition, Chabad persisted in its efforts to challenge, through legal means, the Russian Federation’s possession of the Library and Archive. In 1992, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation purportedly issued an order directing the Russian State Library to transfer the Library to the Chabad delegation. Russia countered, asserting that the 1992 order merely facilitated the transfer of the Library from the Russian State Library to the State Jewish Academy, a separate state institution. A series of Russian courts ultimately denied Chabad’s claims to the Library and Archive.
In 1992, Chabad sent a delegation to reclaim the Library. However, the delegation reported encountering “a group of anti-Semitic hooligans” allegedly incited by a Russian State Library director. In 1993, Leon Fuerth, national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore, negotiated an agreement with Evgeny Sidorov, Russia’s minister of culture. The agreement called for the transfer of the Library to a new facility, where Russian State Library staff, with Chabad’s assistance, would catalog its contents. Chabad maintains that Russian authorities failed to fulfill their obligations under this agreement.
The Legal Dispute and Chabad’s Claims
In 2004, Chabad sued Russia in U.S. federal court, claiming that Russia unlawfully possessed the Library and Archive in violation of international law. Chabad argued that the “expropriation exception” to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) gave U.S. courts jurisdiction. A series of federal courts ruled in Chabad’s favor. In 2024, however, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. courts never had jurisdiction, and ruled that all claims concerning the Library and Archive must be brought in Russian courts.
Will the latest ruling stop Chabad’s effort to recover the Archive and Library? Unlikely. Chabad has spent over 20 years in U.S. courts, and its dispute with Russia goes back more than a century. Chabad is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. To be continued.
Eliyahu Asher Prero, Esq. is a practicing lawyer and certified mohel. He graduated magna cum laude from Seton Hall Law with a concentration in intellectual property law and served as a clerk for the Honorable Thomas A. Sarlo, Superior Court of New Jersey, Civil Division-Bergen County. Please address all correspondence to The Jewish Link.
