Chabad Tries Court to Get Rabbis' Books Back From Russia

The bell rang on June 26 to mark the end of the latest round, but no one can say when the fight between the Chabad-Lubavitch sect and the Russian Federation will end. When one side is trying to recover its religious legacy and the other is defining its national heritage, throwing in the towel is not an option.

At issue is an irreplaceable library of some 12,000 rare books, 381 manuscripts and 25,000 pages of handwritten rabbinical teachings that were once held by the Chabad-Lubavitch head rabbis but were left behind when the rabbis fled for safety during the world wars. The collection now sits in the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archive. Chabad is suing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to get it back. Last month, after nearly five years of litigation, Russia said it would no longer participate in the case.

"They have decided that, after they lost the first couple rounds, they're taking their marbles and going home," said Nathan Lewin, one of the lawyers representing Chabad.

But Lewin suggests his client isn't likely to give up so quickly. What's four years when -- to quote Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, who has led Chabad's efforts to recover the library -- you're engaged in a "spiritual quest"?

STEEPED IN TEARS

Today, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement is one of ultra-orthodox Judaism's most influential sects and is based in New York. As for the library, Cunin, who is head of Chabad-Lubavitch on the West Coast, called it "the essence, the soul [of Chabad]. These books are steeped with the tears of the rebbes who wrote them."

A century ago, the Lubavitchers were based in Russia. During the Communist Revolution, Bolsheviks seized the library of their leader, the fifth rabbi, who had left it in a Moscow warehouse while escaping World War I. Two decades later, the sixth rabbi was forced to flee Nazi-occupied Poland, leaving behind his own library. By the war's end, that library had been looted by Hitler's troops, then taken again by Soviet soldiers, who carted it back to Moscow, there to join the fifth rabbi's collection.

Like so many things that disappeared behind the Iron Curtain, the fate of the library was not clear. At one point, Soviet authorities said it had burned in an accidental fire. But the library resurfaced in 1988, and Chabad began negotiations to try to have it returned. Over time, it enlisted political figures such as then-Secretary of State James Baker III and then-Vice President Al Gore in its efforts to cajole Russia's political leaders. Despite several promises and the return of eight token books, the library has stayed put.

In court documents, Russia has said it considers the library a part of its cultural heritage -- after all, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement began there, and the sect is alive in Russia today. This dispute parallels an ongoing debate about Russia's World War II legacy. The country has been notoriously slow, and often outright unwilling, to return the millions of cultural treasures it seized from Germany and other territories it occupied. These so-called "trophies" the Russian government sees as compensation for the horrors Russia suffered at the hands of the Nazis. It has promised to review its collections for art that originally belonged Jewish families, but has yet to do so.

"I really don't think that they're intent on keeping the Jewish looted art, but I don't think there's any political will to move it along or the resources to do it," said Stuart Eizenstat, a partner at Washington's Covington & Burling who has been deeply involved in Holocaust restitution efforts.

On the same day Russia officially abandoned the Chabad case, it sent a delegation to Prague, Czech Republic, to join 48 other countries discussing issues of World War II restitution. Each country committed itself to a set of standards for returning artifacts belonging to Holocaust victims. According to Eizenstat, who led the U.S. delegation, Russia lobbied for language that would have let it argue against handing back much of its wartime loot. (Eventually, Eizenstat said, the conference allowed a more "harmless" version of the clause.)

THE COURT ROUTE

Chabad launched its U.S. litigation to retrieve the rabbis' library in November 2004, suing Russia in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, where it was represented byBingham McCutchen partners Seth Gerber and Marshall Grossman. The case hinged on a section of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that permits individuals to sue foreign countries over property seized in violation of international law. Under the statute, the FSIA suit was removed to Washington, where Nathan and Alyza Lewin of Lewin & Lewin joined the case, along with Howrey partner William Bradford Reynolds. The case is before Chief Judge Royce Lamberth.

Initially, Russia sought to dismiss the suit on grounds that it had never violated any international conventions. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with Chabad in June 2008.

In January of this year, Russia's lawyers at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey -- including James Murphy, Alan Briggs and Jeremy Dutra in the Washington office, who declined comment -- asked to be removed from the case. They had lost contact with their client, they told the court, and weren't being paid. In March, they withdrew the request, explaining only that they had "reached an accommodation" with their client.

Meanwhile, Chabad discovered that pages of the handwritten teachings were turning up on the Israeli black market, where they were selling for $10,000 to $20,000 per page, according to Nathan Lewin. Russia denied that the pages had come from the military archive, but Lamberth issued an injunction on Jan. 27 ordering Russia to step up its efforts to protect the contents of the library.

The case seemed to be moving slowly toward discovery until this month, when Russia finally stepped out.

"The Russian Federation views any continued defense before this Court and, indeed, any participation in this litigation as fundamentally incompatible with its rights as a sovereign nation," its filing stated, adding that Chabad was free to press its case in the Russian courts. However, if the U.S. government chose to intervene again, Russia wrote, the United States should stick to "diplomatic channels."

"If they had wanted to take that position, they should have taken it without trying to test their legal arguments in the courts," responded Lewin.

TACTICS VS. TACTICS

Ordinarily, when countries are sued under the FSIA, they decide at the start whether to defend themselves or simply default and let the plaintiff try to collect a judgment. But Russia's move is not unprecedented, said Steven Perles of the Perles Law Firm in Washington. In politically charged suits, countries sometimes attempt a legal defense through a motion to dismiss and then bail out of the litigation before the case can go to discovery or be tried on the merits, said Perles, a specialist in FSIA cases. He pointed to suits over terrorist attacks involving Libya and Sudan as examples.

"It's just smart litigation tactics on their part," Perles said. If Russia had managed to persuade the court to dismiss Chabad's case, he noted, it could have used the ruling as a buffer against diplomatic pressure down the line.

With Russia gone, Chabad will still be free to pursue a judgment in U.S. district court. But Russia might not have much to worry about, said Crowell & Moring partner Stuart Newberger, who co-chairs the Washington firm's international dispute resolution practice. Even if Chabad were to win an award in federal court here, he said, it could collect only by petitioning a Russian court.

"If they want to enforce the judgment, they're going to have to go to Moscow, and that may be why the Russians decided to pull from the case," Newberger said.

Nathan Lewin disagrees with that interpretation of the FSIA. He said he believes that Chabad could enforce a judgment by attaching Russian assets in the United States.

Not that Chabad wants those assets. "The reason we went to the courts was that we saw from the diplomatic efforts that we were running up against a stone wall," Lewin said. Any assets his client claimed, he said, would serve as leverage to pressure Russia to, at long last, release the library.

Jewish Group Seeks Default Judgment Against Russia

A Jewish organization asked a federal judge for a default judgment against Russia today, following the country's exit from a long-running lawsuit over a priceless religious library.

Lawyers for Chabad-Lubavitch, one of the world’s largest sects of ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews, filed a motion today at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia accusing Russia of flaunting U.S. law by ducking out of the suit. On June 26, Russia filed a notice informing the court that it would no longer participate in the litigation, which it called “incompatible with its rights as a sovereign nation.”

Russia, represented by a team from Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, had already litigated the case through a motion to dismiss and an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled that all of Chabad’s claims could go forward.

“[Russia’s] refusal to accept the decision of the Court of Appeals and their disobedience of this Court’s orders and contempt for this Court’s processes warrant the entry of a default,” Chabad’s filing states.

Chabad’s lawyers — Nathan Lewin and Alyza Lewin of Lewin & Lewin, Marshall Grossman and Seth Gerber of Bingham McCutchen, and William Bradford Reynolds of Howrey — said they would seek a default shortly after Russia abandoned the suit. Even, if they convince Judge Royce Lamberth to rule in their favor, collecting on the judgment could be difficult. It unclear they will be able to seek Russian assets in the U.S., or if they will have to seek compensation in a Russian court.

See the National Law Journal’s last story on the suit.

Chabad finds NIMBY resistance to new schools, even in 'Kosher District'

A plan by the Chabad group to build a new school, condos, bathhouse and stores is one of several Westside and Valley projects meeting increasing resistance from neighbors, many of them fellow Jews.
By Tami Abdollah

December 7, 2008

On most weekdays, young boys in yarmulkes can be seen hanging out with friends in front of the new kosher Subway sandwich shop, while Orthodox women in modest dress stroll past Judaica stores and synagogues along Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles.

Dubbed the "Kosher District" by some planners, this roughly 12-block stretch near Robertson Boulevard has exploded in recent years with restaurants, shops and religious institutions aimed at serving the neighborhood's growing Jewish population.

But growth has also spurred tensions within the community.

Neighbors are threatening legal action against Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish outreach organization whose Hebrew acronym stands for wisdom, understanding and knowledge, over its proposal to construct a new girls school, condos, a ritual bathhouse and retail stores between Wetherly and Crest drives.

Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, the head of Chabad of California, said his group has been battling neighborhood opposition in one form or another across the region for the last 40 years. But these days much of the opposition comes from its own Jewish neighbors.

"Oy vey, oy vey, is what they say," said Cunin, describing neighborhood concerns with a common Yiddish expression. "That's the song."

Earlier this year, a Chabad preschool in Pacific Palisades was forced to move from its location at Temescal Gateway Park after complaints from neighbors and the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy.

In Brentwood, a Chabad house is being constructed on Bundy Drive off San Vicente Boulevard despite concerns in the residential neighborhood that it will ultimately be used as a house of worship, violating zoning regulations and inviting a constant stream of visitors.

A development project in Valley Village north of Studio City has met with stiff opposition from neighbors over the height of the project and inadequate parking. And on Pico Boulevardin West Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, another Jewish organization, has become embroiled in a dispute with its mostly Jewish neighbors over its expansion plans for the Museum of Tolerance, a Holocaust memorial.

All of the projects are in Westside or San Fernando Valley neighborhoods prone to overdevelopment, traffic and parking problems.

But Lorrie Stone, a Pico Boulevard neighborhood spokeswoman who lives near the latest proposed Chabad project, thinks enough is enough.

"It's like, give us a break, there's no public transportation here, there's no parking here, and now you just keep making it worse," Stone said. "None of us are opposed to Chabad . . . Chabad is a wonderful organization; they do unbelievable things. They just can't do it all right here."

For Cunin, plans for a massive residential and retail project on Pico Boulevard between Wetherly and Crest Drives represent a major part of his grand vision of Chabad facilities in West Los Angeles. The new development, which would include a new girls high school, would be built directly across the street from a recently completed elementary and middle school for girls.

The existing building is an imposing neo-Gothic brick structure and one reason why the design for its proposed sister building is more sleek and colorful. But Stone said the area is already overbuilt and that residents worry about inadequate parking for another large structure.

"It's too tall, it's too dense, and there aren't enough parking spots," she said. "They have to park somewhere, and we know they'll end up on our block, just like the other building."

City planners are reviewing the project. But Stone and other neighborhood representatives have voiced strong opposition to the development, which they say would threaten their quality of life.

"Maybe all of us who live on the Westside are feeling the same thing," Stone said. "We don't want just uncontrolled growth. We understand it has to grow; we understand things have to be developed but just not completely uncontrolled. And that's exactly what every single one of these fights is about."

On a recent weekday, dressed in a long black coat, white shirt and black skullcap, Cunin stood in a conference room in the Bais Chaya Mushka School, completed about four years ago, and spoke proudly of Chabad's accomplishments.

"We're not dreamers, we're doers," he said. "Look what we've done." He gestured at the new school building he stood in: three stories of sparkling hallways, airy classrooms, computer rooms with sleek flat-screens and a large gymnasium.

"You should have seen what . . . this building looked like before," Cunin said. "They were studying in closets . . . like broken down shanties."

The project site across the street is currently occupied by four nondescript buildings that once held a jewelry manufacturer, a Jewish boys high school and apartment buildings. One of the aging structures now provides classroom space for Chabad's girls school.

"We've tried very hard to keep up the building," said Rabbi Danny Yiftach, a school administrator. "It's like an old person. If you fix one thing, the next thing is wrong; if you fix another thing, another thing is wrong."

Plans for the new girls high school call for a 108,000-square-foot building on a parcel nearly one-fourth that size. The structure would stand 80 feet high -- almost twice the maximum 45-foot height allowed under current zoning -- with two levels of underground parking, with space for 71 vehicles instead of the required 168.

"There is no zoning in this city to accommodate an institution," said Ben Reznik, an attorney for Chabad who has worked many land-use cases on the Westside. "The zone does not allow enough building height. If we had to build this school within limits of what the zoning was, you would not have any art classes, computer classes; you'd be literally squishing kids into small rooms. It would be a qualitative disaster."

But Daniel Fink, a member of the neighborhood council's board, said the new building would push the neighborhood over the edge.

"It would just damage beyond repair the residential neighborhood immediately to the north," Fink said. "The law is very specific, and they want an exemption . . . My personal goal is to preserve the quality of residential life . . . because if we don't have nice places to live, the rest of it isn't worth it."

The South Robertson Neighborhoods Council has held several meetings on the proposed development. In an August meeting its board members voted unanimously against the project, but the city will make the final decision.

For now city planners are working on a draft environmental impact report. Once they finish, the public will have a 45-day comment period.

"We are just going to lie the process out," Cunin said. "It's America. There's hearings. There's this, there's that. We'll just go with the flow. We've hired the best engineers, the best traffic people; we've done everything the right way."

Abdollah is a Times staff writer.

Chabad Wins Appeal Against the Russian Federation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

Landmark Ruling Clears Way for Chabad to Pursue Recovering Archive of Sacred Books Stolen by Nazis During World War II, Soviet Red Army in U.S. Courts WASHINGTON, June 13

WASHINGTON, June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- In a landmark ruling today, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Agudas
Chasidei Chabad of United States (Chabad) may pursue its claims in a U.S.
federal court against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture
and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State
Military Archive to recover a collection of sacred religious books and
archives.

The D.C. Circuit held that a U.S. federal court has jurisdiction over
Chabad's claims to recover an archive of sacred books and manuscripts which
were stolen by the Nazis during World War II and then taken by the Soviet Red
Army to Moscow in 1945 in violation of international law. In addition, the
D.C. Circuit cleared the way for Chabad to pursue its claims against the
Russian Federation to recover a library of sacred, irreplaceable religious
books which were seized by the Soviets during the Bolshevik Revolution and
then retaken by the newly formed Russian Federation in 1992 after the collapse
of the Soviet Union.

"This is a landmark ruling," said Marshall Grossman, a partner in Bingham
McCutchen's Santa Monica office, who represents Chabad with Bingham partners
Seth Gerber in Santa Monica and David Salmons in Washington, D.C. "We hope and
pray that the Russian government will respect it."

In addition to the Bingham team, Chabad is represented by Washington
attorneys Nathan Lewin and Alyza D. Lewin of Lewin & Lewin, LLP, and Wm.
Bradford Reynolds of Howrey, LLP.

"The Court of Appeals' decision clears the way for the Russian government
to correct a historic wrong that its predecessors have committed against the
Jewish community. We can only hope that the current Russian authorities will
now fulfill the assurances that were made to Chabad representatives and to
United States officials after the Soviet state was replaced with the Russian
Federation. It should not be necessary to engage in extended litigation for
the Chabad community, headquartered today in the United States, to recover
what rightfully belongs to it," added Nathan Lewin.

"This is a historic victory for the Rebbe and for all people of faith and
freedom. These sacred books and manuscripts contain the souls of our Rebbes,
and of their countless followers who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazi
and Soviet regimes. We hope and pray the Russian government of today will now
fulfill its moral and legal obligations to return these sacred texts, " said
Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Eliyohu Cunin of Agudas Chasidei Chabad.


Chabad is headquartered in Brooklyn, N.Y., with more than 3,000
international branches; it is the largest Jewish organization in the world
today. On November 9, 2004, Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian
Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the
Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive, asserting
violations of international law and seeking the return of its collection of
sacred, irreplaceable religious books and manuscripts.


Bingham McCutchen LLP -- www.bingham.com -- is a national law firm with
global capabilities, with nearly 1,000 attorneys in 13 offices. The firm
represents clients in cross-border restructurings and insolvencies, high-
stakes litigation, complex financing and regulatory matters, government
affairs, and a wide variety of sophisticated corporate and technology
transactions.


Based in Washington, D.C., Lewin & Lewin LLP specializes in Supreme Court
and federal appellate litigation and is available for consultation by lawyers
and clients in complex criminal and civil matters in federal courts. Lewin &
Lewin also represents clients and assists attorneys in relations with federal
legislative, executive and administrative agencies.


Founded in 1956, Howrey LLP is a global law firm with over 700 attorneys
and more than 50 economic, financial, and regulatory consultants. Howrey has
offices in Washington, D.C.; Northern Virginia; Houston, Texas; New York, New
York; Los Angeles, Irvine, East Palo Alto and San Francisco, California; Salt
Lake City, Utah; Chicago, Illinois; London, England; Brussels, Belgium; Paris,
France; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Munich, Germany; Madrid, Spain and Taipei,
Taiwan.


SOURCE Bingham McCutchen LLP

Chabad pledges top $7 million

From a Times Staff Writer

September 10, 2007

The West Coast Chabad Lubavitch organization had raised nearly $7.2 million in pledges by late Sunday night during its 27th annual "To Life Telethon," the organization said on its program. The event, telecast from Los Angeles and featuring an array of celebrities, raises funds for the Hasidic Jewish organization's 200 West Coast centers.They offer services such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation, crisis intervention, counseling, summer camps and programs for the elderly.