Russian President Vladimir Putin personally came to announce the transfer of the “Schneerson Archive,” but not the Rebbe’s Library in Brooklyn. Chief RabbiBerel Lazar called it “Solomon’s decision.”

A Chabad website, collive.com reports that Russia’s powerful President Vladimir Putin came Thursday to the Museum of Jewish History in Russia, located in Moscow and which he personally helped build by donating a month’s salary.

This visit had another purpose, as he has already toured and seen the $50 million state-of-the-art complex in the past.

With a photo of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and 2 large bouquets of flowers behind him, and a group of black hatted Chabad rabbis seated in front of him, Putin announced that Russia will be transferring a collection of historic Jewish books and manuscripts to the museum.

Otherwise known as the “Schneerson Archive,” the library belonged to the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersonand was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and ended up in the Russian State Library. A second part fell into the hands of the Nazis, and later seized by the Red Army and handed over to the Russian State Military Archive.

At the request of his successor, the Rebbe – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Lubavitchers have sought the restitution of the library since the late 1980s. President Boris Yeltsin promisedJames Baker, Secretary of State in the first Bush administration, that the holy documents would be returned.

Refusing to do so since, Putin has insisted the books “belong to Russia” and instead proposed the library be transferred to the museum in Moscow. Businessman and writer Sergei L. Ustinov is cited on its website as its founder and director.

Putin said Thursday: “I hope transferring the Schneerson collection, which undoubtedly not only presents an interest, but is also of great value to Jewish people, and not only Jews living in Russia, but also Jews who live in other countries, to the Jewish Museum and the Moscow Tolerance Center for storage purposes, will put an end to this problem.”

According to the Interfax news agency, the president said any person visiting the center, regardless of his place of residence, can “study and hold in his hands these books and get from them the knowledge that modern people need so much.”

For the full article please visit: Collive-Book return