Good Shabbat.
Via Reuters: A Russian court demanded on Thursday that the U.S. Library of Congress hand back seven precious Jewish texts to Moscow – and, in a tit-for-tat ruling, said it should pay a massive fine for every day it delays.
The so-called Schneerson collection, claimed by both Russia and the New York-based Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch group, has become a bone of contention in Russia-U.S. ties, at their lowest for decades due to the Ukraine crisis.
The Library of Congress has seven books of the collection, Interfax reported. Russia has 4,425 texts, including editions of the Torah and the Talmud, some of them dating back to to the 16th century. A Moscow arbitration court ruled that the Library of Congress should pay $50,000 in fines for every day the seven books are not handed over.
Wow, your excerpt really slants the issue.
If you read the whole linked article, it doesn’t sound like the US has any right to these texts. The seven books were LOANED to the US for 60 days. The $50,000 was first fined against Russia for what? Refusing to give away the rest of the collection? Just because the librarian moved to NY, doesn’t mean he gets to take the library with him. Why make it sound like the LOC is the victim?