|
|
January 3, 2003/Tevet 29 5763, Vol. 55, No. 19
Literary treasure
Lubavitch receives books from Russia
LEV KRICHEVSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Rabbi Shlomo Kunin, director of Chabad activities in California and longtime advocate for the return of the Schneerson library, sings as he brings 16 returned books into Moscow's Bronnaya Synagogue on Dec. 16.
Photo by Lev Krichevsky/JTA
|
The Lubavitch movement is celebrating the transfer of 16 religious books to a Lubavitch-run synagogue in Moscow.
But it is unclear when - and indeed, if - the balance of the thousands of books that make up the "Schneerson Library" will come into the fervently Orthodox group's hands.
On Dec. 16, a group of Lubavitch Jews gathered in a downtown Moscow synagogue to welcome the 16 books that were returned to the movement from the Russian State Library, formerly known as the Lenin Library, where the collection has been held for the last 80 years.
A few years after the Russian Revolution, the books - estimates range from 4,000 to 12,000 volumes - were seized from the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, as part of a crackdown on religion.
Excitement, singing and clapping filled the room as Rabbi Shlomo Kunin, who described the transfer as "the fulfillment of 80 years of imprisonment," carried the pile of antique books into the Bronnaya synagogue's main hall.
Long tables were put together and covered with talitot, or prayer shawls, before the books were laid out.
Kunin opened the front page of the thickest volume in the pile.
"It's Gemarrah," he announced, referring to a volume of Talmudic texts.
Another book turned out to be a 200-year-old prayer book of the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, and Kunin recited his evening prayer over the newly found treasure.
The return of the books came after more than a decade of efforts.
Agudas Chasidei Chabad-Lubavitch, a group affiliated with the Lubavitch movement, was established in 1990 with the goal of achieving the release of the Schneerson collection.
It took three U.S. administrations, appeals by all 100 U.S. senators, heads of state from various nations and Jewish leaders from around the world "to get these 16 volumes," said the Los Angeles-based Kunin, who has been spearheading the Lubavitch effort to get the books returned.
More directly, a gesture from the Bush administration apparently made the return possible.
At a Dec. 13 ceremony in Moscow, the United States returned to Russia an archive of the Smolensk Regional Committee of the Communist Party. At the end of World War II, the U.S. armed forces came into possession of the archive, captured by the Nazis when they occupied Russia during World War II.
|
