Russia slams US fine over disputed Jewish archive

Russia on Thursday branded as a provocation a US judge’s decision to slap a $50,000-a-day fine on Moscow for its failure to return an historic but disputed Jewish library to the United States.

A US District Court court on Tuesday levied the fine for Russia’s failure to comply with a 2010 order to return the collection to either embassy officials in Moscow or representatives of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community in Moscow.

The Russian foreign ministry called the 2010 ruling an “abominable” decision that was made only worse by Tuesday’s fine.

Russia “views this as a completely illegal and provocative ruling,” the foreign ministry said in reference to Tuesday’s order.

“We are outraged that the Washington court took this unprecedented step, which is fraught with the most serious of consequences,” said the statement.

The archive — referred to as the Schneersohn Library in honour of its original owner Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn — was seized by Soviet troops in Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.

The library — which contains historic Jewish texts assembled in the 18th century — has since been moved to the Russian state archive.

The vast library is being claimed by a Hasidic group in New York but the Russian government insists that it is a part of its historic holdings.

The dispute has harmed cultural exchanges between the two countries and seen Russia put a freeze on the display of art exhibits in the United States for fear of them getting seized as collateral.