Source: Yahoo! News
Wire Service: AP
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050218/ap_on_go_co/russia_jewish_collection_1
On February 18, 2005 the Associated Press reported, "All 100 senators have signed a letter urging the Russian government to return a collection of religious books to a New York-based orthodox Jewish group. The books were seized more than 80 years ago from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson as part of a Soviet crackdown on religion. In December 2002, the Russian government returned some of the books to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. But that was only a portion of the collection, and the balance remains in the possession of the Russian State Library. Other religious texts, thought to be destroyed in the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, are being held at the Russian State Military Archive...Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, a Jew born in Brooklyn, N.Y...said in a statement that he hoped President Bush would deliver the letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting later this month. The White House had no immediate comment on the letter. There was no answer at the Russian embassy Friday afternoon."