US Government opposes court’s Jewish archive ruling

The United States government disagrees with a federal court’s decision to impose a $50,000-a-day fine on Russia for failing to comply with an earlier order to hand over religious texts to a New York-based Orthodox Jewish group, a US State Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

On Wednesday a federal judge in Washington ordered Russia to pay the fine for every day it fails to return the Schneerson collection of sacred Jewish books to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, which is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

While the United States supports the group’s “assertion of ownership” of the collection, it does not believe the ruling by Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia is “appropriate in this case,” State Department spokeswoman Ariel Vaagen told RIA Novosti.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s order imposing such fines against the Russian Federation,” Vaagen said.

The United States does not believe the fine will compel Russia to hand over the Schneerson collection, which consists of thousands of books and religious documents, Vaagen added. The texts were assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement over two centuries prior to World War II in Belarus.

The United States has “offered diplomatic channels to help facilitate a solution, and will continue to work towards an amicable resolution to their dispute,” Vaagen told RIA Novosti.

Chabad’s legal team has said it would strive to enforce the ruling, including targeting the Russian government’s property in the United States under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, according to the Associated Press.

Vaagen said the United States does not believe the ruling to impose the fine is a “proper application” of the act. She directed further inquiries to the US Department of Justice, which declined to comment when reached by RIA Novosti on Thursday.

Seth Gerber, a lawyer for the Chabad, declined to comment when reached by telephone Thursday afternoon but said the movement would be releasing a statement later in the day.