Illegal New York synagogue tunnel leads to 9 arrests
Nine individuals from a Hasidic Jewish community in New York have been apprehended and accused in connection with a concealed tunnel leading to a historic synagogue.
A clash ensued when municipal authorities and leaders from the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters arrived to seal off the tunnel.
The men face charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and obstructing governmental administration. A spokesperson for the Chabad referred to them as a “group of extremist students.”
These illicit tunnels were constructed beneath a prominent street in Brooklyn, where the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters stands—a site of significant importance in the Jewish community.
City inspectors were urgently called to the Chabad on Monday for a structural assessment due to concerns that the unauthorized tunnel could potentially damage the renowned property.
A confrontation erupted when police encountered a group of young men obstructing inspection and attempting to fill the tunnel with cement. Some of the individuals proceeded to breach the wall of the prayer space, leading to their subsequent arrests.
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the chairman of the Chabad, expressed gratitude to the police for their efforts and conveyed the community’s distress over the vandalism perpetrated by this group of young agitators.
“These odious actions will be investigated, and the sanctity of the synagogue will be restored,” he said.
It is unclear who built the tunnel, how they did it, and their motivations. It appears the tunnel connects to at least one other building on the street in Brooklyn.
One local told the New York Times that the men sought to build the tunnel to hasten the expansion of the synagogue.
Some members who have attended services and functions at the Chabad have reportedly complained about overcrowding in the building in recent years.
However, videos and photos from inside the building on Monday showed a small group of mostly young men trying to block the tunnel from being filled with cement.
Others were seen pulling wood panels from the walls of the sanctuary and using benches to block police in the videos and images. One of the videos reviewed by the BBC showed an officer using a spray to break up a growing skirmish.
The building, which sees thousands of visitors each year, was formerly the home of the leader of the Orthodox Jewish movement – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
The rabbi is credited with leading the Chabad-Lubavitch and revitalizing the Hasidic religious community after it was devastated in the Holocaust. He died in 1994, but his headquarters remains a well-known center for the Jewish religion.
While the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement is sprawling and its mission is to welcome Jews at all levels of religious practice, it also has key divisions within the larger movement. Those divisions appeared to have spilled over in the tunnel dispute at 770 Eastern Parkway this month.
A deeply religious fringe group within the Chabad believes Rabbi Schneerson is the Jewish Messiah – an idea the mainstream movement rejects. That disagreement is reportedly an element in the tunnel altercation.
The building has been closed as inspection of the tunnels has continued.
