Russia has blocked the export of exhibits to exhibitions in the United States because of the Chabad case

Russia’s response to a court decision to return items to the Jewish group of Chabad is a ban on the transfer of exhibits for temporary use to American museums. Russia has banned the transfer of art to US museums in retaliation for a U.S. court order to return religious artifacts to the Jewish Chabad movement.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) was at the center of legal and diplomatic disputes over Russian government’s decision to ban art from being presented to US museums as a result of a decision by a US court in favor of the Chabad religious group.

The cultural veto imposed by Russia has already led to the cancellation of one museum exhibition in the United States, and, in the near future, it will also cause a delay in another large exhibition. LACMA will not be able to demonstrate all 38 works at a major exhibition of Muslim art, which was supposed to open on June 5.

Russia’s actions were the result of a verdict of the US District Court, which last summer ruled that the collection of religious books and manuscripts should return to Chabad, or rather, to its international office in New York. Now, authorities claim that they fear that art will be seized as collateral, despite diplomatic and legal guarantees to the contrary.

LACMA spokeswoman Barbara Pflaumer said she could not comment on LACMA’s efforts to soften the Russians in the hope of gaining masterpieces. According to her, the situation is "extremely difficult, and we are doing everything we can in order not to complicate it." She also added that the exhibition "Gifts of the Sultan: The Art of Gift at the Muslim Court" will be held without the participation of Russia.

The ban also affected other well-known institutions. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was expecting four paintings for the upcoming Cezanne exhibition and another for the 19th-century art exhibition, but they stayed in Russia, according to the museum’s press secretary Harold Holzer. The museums, in response, warned Russian institutions that they would not send costumes to the planned traveling exhibition of the French designer Paul Pure if the ban was not lifted.

Last fall, four cultural loans from Russia were lost by the J. Paul Getty Museum, however, during the period of the “Image of the Past in France in the years 1250-1500” exhibition, he managed to replace unreceived artworks with masterpieces from his own collection.

In March, Russian authorities insisted that the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, curtail its Treasures from Moscow exhibition, which had been on display since October, and send exhibits home four months earlier than its planned closure.

The Houston Museum of Natural History planned to open the exhibition “Treasures from the Hermitage: Pearls of the Russian Crown” at the end of the week before last, but it was postponed indefinitely. At the same time, attempts to contact the press secretary of the Russian embassy last week were unsuccessful.

At the same time, US officials said that the diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Moscow over the past few months have been very high: "we offered all the guarantees that we could, that nothing would happen to works of art." Recall that the US government operates under the federal law of the 1960s, which prohibits the making of legal requirements for objects of art that were granted for temporary use by non-profit cultural centers in the United States. An official who anonymously commented on the situation claims that the National Art Gallery in Washington and the Menil Collection in Houston also suffered from this move. Nevertheless, the authorities are doing their best to resolve the Chabad case.

In 2004, Beit Chabad, the center of the Orthodox Hasidic movement that originated in Russia in the 1700s, was opened in Los Angeles. Last July, the District Court judge Royce S. Lambert put an end to the process, which lasted almost six years, ordering Russia to return 12 thousand books and manuscripts and 25 thousand pages of works of rabbis, which are known as the Schneerson collection. Sacred texts were seized during the revolution and World War II.

Chabad first demanded their return in 1990. Russia considered the claim to be unfounded, since the jurisdiction of American courts does not extend to Russian property. But in 2008, the federal court of appeals came to the opposite conclusion, which did not prevent the Russians from protesting.

Seth Gerber, a representative of Chabad in Los Angeles, said that LACMA recently asked his organization to explain to the Russians that the museum did not intend to take away and hold the works of art as collateral until the sacred texts were returned. Gerber said that Chabad is glad to meet and does not require anything but his books and writings.

A formal agreement signed by representatives of Chabad and LACMA and approved by the US District Court in Washington states: "Chabad guarantees that there are no violations of the procedure for the non-commercial exchange of works of art and cultural property between Russian and American citizens protected by United States law."

Also approved is a list of 38 works of art provided for the exhibition by three Russian museums. Most of the work comes from Turkey and Iran. They date from the period from the eleventh century to the early 1800s. The list of items includes ceremonial weapons, uniforms, items made of gold and precious stones.

“The main idea of the exhibition is to show diplomatic gifts, so our situation is especially comic,” says a LACMA spokeswoman.

According to the newspaper "Los Angeles Times".