A riot broke out at a historic synagogue in Brooklyn after members clashed over the fate of secret tunnels.
The tunnels were reportedly constructed over the last six months by students at Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters. The underground tunnels connected the synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway to adjacent properties at 784-788 Eastern Parkway. Synagogue administrators who accidentally learned of the tunnels roughly three weeks ago became concerned about the structural integrity of the building.
According to Crownheights.info, a construction company placing new plumbing near 770 had dug a trench for a waterline and uncovered the tunnel.
“Putting the pieces together, one of the workers in 770 investigated and got the shock of his life when he discovered the tunnel, burrowed from the Mikvah on the corner of Union Street and Kingston Ave,” reported the outlet. “The tunnel allegedly extended from the Mikvah under the Kingston Ave women’s section of 770, where it exited into the building.”
Chabad officials closed the women’s section of the synagogue and ordered that the tunnels be sealed.
Residents in the neighborhood told Crownheights.info they had been suspicious of noises in their homes at night. Richard Strocher, who creates President Donald Trump-themed t-shirts, shared a screenshot of a message he posted in November speculating that there were people underneath his ground-floor apartment.
The young men who built the tunnel – referred to as Bochurim – are believed to have worked at night for long periods of time to create the underground passageway. Cement trucks arrived at Chabad on Jan. 8 with instructions to fill in the tunnel. The young men involved in the construction refused to have the tunnels sealed off and were filmed tearing wood panels off the walls in one room and getting into the passageway cut from the cement foundation in protest.
A crowd of men from the Jewish community looked on in one video as books were passed out to people who had climbed into the tunnel.
Police were called to the scene where tensions continued to escalate. Videos posted to social media show men chanting, toppling furniture and pushing law enforcement. Police eventually hung a sheet over the exposed tunnel and pulled out the young men inside to handcuff them as the crowd inside the building chanted. There is also a video of a Hasidic man emerging through a sidewalk grate believed to be connected to the tunnels.
Reports indicate that at least 10 people have been arrested.
The Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters released a statement condemning the young men’s action and thanking the New York Police Department for its “professionalism and sensitivity.”
“The Chabad-Lubavitch community is pained by the vandalism of a group of young agitators who damaged the synagogue,” stated Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the chairman of the organization. “These odious actions will be investigated, and the sanctity of the synagogue will be restored.”
Chabad-Lubavitch stems from an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty originating in Russia over 250 years ago. The current organization was founded in the 1940s to offer educational and social services to members of the movement. Chabad reports that currently “over 5,000 full-time emissary families (2,000 in the United States) apply 250-year-old principles and philosophy to direct more than 3,500 institutions (and a workforce that numbers in the tens of thousands) dedicated to the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide.”
Motti Seligson, the director of media at Chabad, called the student who created the Crown Heights tunnels “a group of extremists” who vandalized the “sanctuary” during their protest. He added that the building has been closed “pending a structural safety review.”
“Lubavitch officials have attempted to gain proper control of the premises through the New York State court system; unfortunately, despite consistently prevailing in court, the process has dragged on for years,” Seligson wrote in a post on X in the early hours of Jan. 9. “This is, obviously, deeply distressing to the Lubavitch movement, and the Jewish community worldwide. We hope and pray to be able to expeditiously restore the sanctity and decorum of this holy place.”
