A group of about 25 Lubavitcher Hasidim were shoved and physically ejected from the Lenin Library in Moscow on Wednesday night as they tried to retrieve their collection of some 12,000 books, which have been held in the state library since 1921.
An elderly member of the group, Avrom Genin, 73, a man with only one foot, was pushed to the floor by Russian police and so badly bruised that he had to be hospitalized, said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, spokesman for the Lubavitcher rebbe in New York, who has been in constant touch with the Lubavitchers in Moscow.
The group of Hasidim had resolved to remain in the library after being told by staff there that “all the librarians are on vacation for an indeterminate time,” recounted Krinsky on Wednesday night following his latest telephone conversation with Moscow.
The library staff had laughed at the group, Krinsky said.
The library has so far refused to comply with several written court orders that it turn over the entire collection of Lubavitcher books to the movement.
The latest order was issued Monday, although it seems additional paperwork from the court was issued on Wednesday, as well. But those orders in hand were not enough to convince the library to comply, Krinsky said.
The violence, perpetrated by library staff and about 10 members of the police, was witnessed by reporters, including Francis Clines of The New York Times, and recorded by television cameras, including those of the Atlanta-based Cable News Network, Krinsky reported.
The Lubavitchers had been promised that Russian President Boris Yeltsin and newly reappointed Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze would become personally involved in helping to resolve the matter on the Lubavitchers’ behalf, said Krinsky.
On Monday, a decision was handed down ordering the library to immediately turn the books over to the Lubavitch movement in Moscow. The court called unacceptable the library’s claim that it owned the books because they had been nationalized.
The decision followed a written order issued in early October.
The Moscow court ruled that the books belong to the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, as successor to a preceding Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneersohn, whose property the books had been.
The Lubavitchers went to the library on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to try to retrieve the books. On Wednesday night they tried to remain there.
The group was carried out bodily from the library, but they plan to return, said Krinsky.
“What is most incomprehensible is that if the Russian court system cannot enforce its decision, then how can the government keep on pleading for foreign investment?” asked Krinsky
“If it invariably happens that any deals would lead to litigation, there is no legal recourse. We have done everything we could. I hope that the final yard will not include violent measures by the Russian people,” he said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
