Tver court of Moscow in absentia arrested Sholom Dov-Ber Levin, director of the American library Agudas Hasidey Chabad, residing in the USA.
The Russian authorities accuse him of "
" Their cost ranges from 150 to 7000 dollars.
The Schneerson Library is a collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts compiled by the Lubavitcher rabbi Joseph Yitzchak Schneerson. Part of the collection was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and ended up in the collections of the Lenin (now Russian State) library. Rabbi Schneerson removed the other part from the Soviet Union, emigrating in 1929. Lubavitcher Hasidim have sought the return of the Schneerson collection since the late 1980s.
In 1993, Advisor to the US Vice President Leon Fuert and Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Evgeny Sidorov concluded an agreement according to which a year later the RSL donated seven books from the Schneerson library to the Library of Congress (their cost is from $ 150 to $ 7 thousand. per book) in the framework of the so-called international library subscription. In the USA, books were transferred to the library “Agudas Hasidei Chabad” by Mr. Levin. In accordance with the subscription rules, after some time they were supposed to return to Russia, but this has not happened until now, the newspaper writes..
In 2010, Washington federal judge Royce Lambert issued a ruling according to which American Hasidim proved the legitimacy of claims for Hebrew manuscripts, which, in their opinion, are illegal in Russia. Later, on January 17, 2013, the same court decided to impose a daily fine of 50 thousand on Russia. dollars for non-execution of the verdict.
In May 2014, the Moscow Arbitration Court at the suit of the Russian State Library (formerly. Leninki) and the Russian Ministry of Culture ordered the United States to return books from the collection of Schneerson of Russia.
In case of failure to comply with this verdict, the defendants were fined 50 thousand. dollars for every day deferment.
The 71-year-old rabbi bibliographer Sholom Dov-Ber Levin became the defendant after it turned out that books from the Library of Congress were deposited at the Agudas Hasidei Chabad library, of which he is the main trustee.
In May of this year, Rabbi Levin was put on the federal wanted list, and in August - on the international.