Federal Judge Charles P. Sifton, whose 1987 landmark decision cemented communal ownership of the priceless library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad, the umbrella group of Chabad-Lubavitch, against an individual’s claims of private inheritance, passed away Monday at the age of 74.
With a career spanning more than 30 years, Sifton, according to The New York Times, issued rulings affecting the gender makeup of the New York Fire Department and allowing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to run for a third term.
But it was his involvement in the library case that earned him fame in Chasidic circles. On Jan. 6, 1987, corresponding to the fifth day of the Hebrew month of Teves, the jurist ordered the return of priceless volumes and manuscripts that had been taken from the library at Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In his decision, Sifton ruled that the library’s collections – amassed over the years by succeeding generations of Lubavitch Rebbes – belonged to the movement, as did the succeeding Rebbes themselves.
Sensitive To Rights of Religious Observers Judge Sifton, whose wife was the daughter of the famed Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, was sensitive to the rights of religious observers. In a habeas petition which I represented before him in December 2007, Sifton expressed strong concerns that an Orthodox Jew should be allowed to obey his faith even while serving time in federal prison. An agreement was thereupon reached with the Dept of Justice where the prisoner was sent to a more amenable facility. That would not have been possible with a different judge who did not share this remarkable sensitivity toward the rights of religious observers. It is very fortunate that the Lubavitch library case was assigned to this particular judge. Judge Charles P. Sifton was a man of justice and truth, and he will be sorely missed.