Rare Hasidic Writings Restored by Poland to Lubavitch Group

A collection representing the writings and libraries of five generations of Hasidic leaders in Eastern Europe was unpacked before television cameras in the presence of dignitaries and well-wishers at Independence Hall this week. The 240 books and 130 manuscripts believed lost when their last owner, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, fled from Poland to the United States in 1940, were formally turned over by the Polish government at the ceremonies here culminating three years of negotiations initiated by the Philadelphia Friends of Lubavitch, according to I.J. Blynn, writing in the Jewish Exponent.

The handwritten manuscripts and books, some dating from the 15th Century, were discovered by a researcher in the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw, established by the Polish government after World War II. In 1974, Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, director of the Philadelphia Lubavitcher Center and Leonard Goldfine, chairman of the Philadelphia Friends of Lubavitch, approached Edward Piszek, a businessman of Polish extraction who had donated more than a half million dollars in medical equipment to the Polish government. His contacts with the Warsaw regime helped open negotiations aimed at securing the collection. They were carried out in what Goldfine described as “an atmosphere of friendship and good will.”

After false starts, trips to Warsaw and assistance from the U.S. State Department and former White House advisor on Jewish Affairs, David Lissy, an agreement was reached and the collection was flown directly from Warsaw to Philadelphia.

RESTORATION CALLED ‘GOOD BEGINNING’

Present at the ceremonies were Goldfine, Rabbi Shemtov, Piszek, to whom the collection was officially presented, Bronislaw Zych, Counselor at the Polish Embassy in Washington, John Cardinal Krol, James Michener, the author and Asher Naim, Consul General of Israel in Philadelphia. Naim noted that in the past, requests by Jewish groups to the Polish government for the return of Jewish writings had been met with reluctance and refusal. He called the return of the Lubavitch manuscripts a “good beginning, “but questioned whether the action was “a one-time gesture or a change in attitude that will bring the return of the large collection of sacred writings still in Poland.”

Responding to a similar question, Zych said his government considered Jewish writings in Poland “part of the long history of Polish-Jewish relations” and that Jewish artifacts there belong to a common Polish culture and not to any one group.

Cardinal Krol cited the “very noble 1000-year history of the Polish and Jewish peoples.” Michener called the Polish government’s action “prudent and right.” Rabbi Shemtov noted that “the real, significance of these books is known only to Rabbi Schneerson (Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson, son-in-law of the late Rabbi Joseph Schneerson and present leader of the Lubavitch movement), but I will say that this is the most precious, the most valuable thing anyone can hold in his hand.” He said the collection ultimately will be taken to Rabbi Schneerson at Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn.