Riot breaks out after secret tunnel is found underneath Brooklyn Chabad

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Riot breaks out after secret tunnel is found underneath Brooklyn Chabad​

By
Social Links forMelissa Koenig and

Social Links forJoe Marino
Published Jan. 9, 2024, 8:49 a.m. ET

A riot broke out in a historic Brooklyn synagogue when a group of rebellious Orthodox men tried to stop police and construction crews from filling in a secretive tunnel they illegally dug to reach a closed-down women’s bath.
The enraged men, thought to be mostly in their teens and early 20s, were filmed tearing down wood paneling and wooden support beams Monday at the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Crown Heights.
Other footage from the temple on Eastern Parkway showed cops trying to hold back dozens of Hasidic Jewish men as they pushed their way into the 20-foot-wide enclosure underneath the women’s section, toppling over wooden pews in their anger.
Synagogue leader Rabbi Yosef Braun condemned those involved, saying they arrived “ready to destroy and deface the Holy Walls” — calling it “mind-boggling.”
Members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement have reportedly been digging out a tunnel underneath the Crown Heights synagogue for nearly a year.





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It was apparently designed to reach an abandoned women’s mikvah — or ritual bath — around the corner and “expand” the synagogue, according to the Jewish outlet Forward, but it is unclear what motivated the members of the Chabad-Lubavitch community to start digging out the tunnel.
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A riot broke out at a Brooklyn synagogue on Monday when cops tried to hold back a group of Orthodox Jewish men who were pushing their way into an illegal tunnel they built.@FrumTikTok / X
The tunnel was finally discovered last month when neighbors reported suspicious noises coming from underneath their homes, Israel National News reports.
A video posted on CrownHeights.Info’s Instagram in December showed a dark, dirt-walled space in the recesses of the shuttered women’s mikvah nearby.
Following the discovery, the synagogue leadership called in structural engineers to assess the damage, and on Monday cement mixers arrived on the scene to fill it in — sparking the riot.
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The group of young Orthodox Jewish men clamored to get inside the tunnel to prevent crews from filling it with cement@FrumTikTok / X
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Some of the rioters were also seen jeering at the cops and filming their efforts to get inside the tunnel.@FrumTikTok / X
The Hasidic men appeared to use a hammer to break through the synagogue’s brick walls.
A few even managed to make their way into the makeshift tunnel, with video showing at least one man brazenly drinking out of a can inside the tunnel as cops tried to hold off the others who were trying to get inside.
Some of the rioters were also seen jeering at the cops and filming their efforts to get inside the tunnel, which they have been digging out for months, according to Forward.
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The protesters toppled over wooden pews as they tried to make their way into the tunnel.@FrumTikTok / X
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The riot came amid ongoing disputes between the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and synagogue leadership over who legally owns the property.@FrumTikTok / X
Officers were also seen holding back men outside the 100-year-old synagogue, the headquarters of one of the largest groups of Hasidic Jews in the world.
After several hours, footage showed officers taking the men out of the tunnel in handcuffs.
At least a dozen men were taken into custody, sources told The Post. Ten received criminal misdemeanor charges, another was charged with obstructing governmental administration and one other received a summons for disorderly conduct, sources said.

No injuries were reported in the brawl.
Synagogue leader Rabbi Yosef Braun urged other members of the Jewish community “to call them out in all possible ways and strong terms.”
Braun was horrified that they defaced the “shul,” or synagogue, saying to “demolish and destroy a shul — never mind the dangerous aspect, never mind the religious aspect — it’s mind-boggling.
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The group has reportedly been digging out the tunnel for about a year.@FrumTikTok / X
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It was seemingly dug to reach a nearby abandoned women’s mikvah, or ritual bath.@FrumTikTok / X
“They need to be put in their place, put in their place in so many meanings of the word,” he said.
The riot came amid ongoing disputes over who legally owns the property.
In a statement following the altercation, Chabad-Lubavitcher Rabbi Motti Seligson noted that the movement has “attempted to gain proper control of the premises through the New York State court system.”
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One cop was filmed telling a Chabad-Lubavitch member the synagogue’s leadership wanted to “fix this tonight.”@FrumTikTok / X
“Unfortunately, despite consistently prevailing in court, the process has dragged on for years.”
Still, he, too, condemned the actions of the young men who brawled with the police, branding them “extremists” and saying their actions have forced the city to temporarily close the building pending a structural safety review.
“This is, obviously, deeply distressing to the Lubavitch movement and the Jewish community worldwide,” he wrote on X.
“We hope and pray to be able to expeditiously restore the sanctity and decorum of this holy place.”
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A dozen men were taken into custody.@FrumTikTok / X
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the Chabad-Lubavitch chairman, also issued a statement thanking the NYPD for its assistance.
“The Chabad-Lubavitch community is pained by the vandalism of a group of young agitators who damaged the synagogue below Chabad Headquarters,” he said.
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“These odious actions will be investigated and the sanctity of the synagogue will be restored.
“Our thanks to the NYPD for their professionalism and sensitivity,” he continued. “We are grateful for the outpouring of concern, and for our Chabad Lubavitch institutions around the world.”

 

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Extremist Jewish teens secretly ‘hired migrants’ to dig covert Brooklyn synagogue tunnel ‘Shawshank’-style​

By
Social Links forIsabel Vincent
Published Jan. 11, 2024
Updated Jan. 11, 2024, 6:57 a.m.
Extremist students from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic group secretly hired migrant laborers to help them build a controversial tunnel at the sect’s world headquarters in Crown Heights — all to fulfill what they felt was a religious obligation to expand the holy site, The Post has learned.
Six renegade members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement secretly began digging the 3-foot-high, 20-foot-wide, 50-foot-long tunnel themselves, using crude instruments and their hands. They stuffed the dirt into their pockets so that their work wouldn’t be detected by the sect’s leaders and wider community, a source in the orthodox community told The Post.
“You’ve seen the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’? That’s what these young men did at first: They dug and put the dirt in their pockets,” said Eitan Kalmowitz, a member of the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights.
Later, the men, most of them in their teens and early twenties, took up a collection and hired a group of migrant laborers to finish the job, Kalmowitz said, describing the workers as “Mexicans.”
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Nine men — including Henachem Mulakando (left) and Shmuel Malka (center) — were arrested for criminal mischief and reckless endangerment after the NYPD tried to stop construction of a secret tunnel beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.William C Lopez/New York Post
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Extremist yeshiva students initially used their hands to dig a tunnel as part of their religious mission to expand Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters, the holiest site for the sect.
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The tunnelers, described by one source as “part of a small extreme group,” then hired migrant laborers to work on it, according to a community source.
The workers lived at an abandoned building that contained a men’s ritual bath near Chabad world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway — known simply as 770 in the community — for the duration of the clandestine work, Kalmowitz said.





“The Mexicans lived in the building for three weeks during the work,” said Kalmowitz, adding that the migrants did the work “correctly” and installed support beams. “They slept and ate there because it was a secret operation.”
Another Chabad member said he was shocked by how they managed to hide it.
“I was surprised by the stealth and secrecy of it all,” said a 38-year-old Chabad member who did not want to be identified. “It’s incredible to me that they kept it under wraps. The yeshiva boys are very idealistic, extreme.”
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A view of the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights, where a group of extremist students dug the controversial tunnel.Gregory P. Mango
Some of the students are on visas from Safed, a holy city in Israel that is considered the birthplace of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, said a Chabad rabbi who asked not to be named.
The controversy over the clandestine construction project exploded earlier this week when members of the community discovered the tunnel and brought in cement workers to fill it in. On Monday, wild scenes broke out as the NYPD was called after some of the students tried to prevent the laborers from entering the tunnel. Nine men, aged 19 to 21, were arrested for criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
“Some time ago, a group of extremist students broke through a few walls in adjacent properties to the synagogue at 784-788 Eastern Parkway to provide them unauthorized access,” said Rabbi Motti Seligson, spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch, in a statement to The Post Tuesday. He did not return a subsequent request for comment Wednesday.
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Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson — the Rebbe — vowed to expand the synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights in 1988, six years before his death.Alamy Stock Photo
As a result, leaders will no longer sponsor the education visas that allowed the foreign students to attend yeshiva in Brooklyn, said the Chabad rabbi who asked not to be named.
“They are fanatical,” said the Chabad rabbi. “They are part of a small extreme group. The concept of Chabad is to be kind to everyone, and we are kind to them, but we never thought for a second they would make such problems. It’s a big mistake to let them into the community. The school will now close the visas to them.”
The Chabad rabbi told The Post that the students were trying to carry out a religious promise to Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson — known as the Rebbe — who vowed to expand the sect’s synagogue in 1988, six years before his death.
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A conference of rabbis gather for a photo in front of Chabad-Lubavitch’s holiest site in Crown Heights. Leaders worry that the controversy surrounding the tunnel is bringing unwanted scrutiny to the insular community.Alamy Stock Photo
Schneerson, who is buried at Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens, known as the Ohel, is seen as the messiah by some members of the Chabad community. Argentina’s president-elect Javier Miele visited the gravesite days after his November election.
The Rebbe, as he is known to followers of the Chabad movement, was born in Ukraine and became one the most important Jewish leaders of the twentieth century. He escaped the war in Europe, settling in New York in 1941 and creating a global network comprised of thousands of schools and community centers.
The extremist students believe that redemption will come to them when they fulfill his command to expand the group’s holiest site.
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Images of the late Rebbe are plastered throughout the Crown Heights community, where Chabad has its world headquarters.Alamy Stock Photo
Some have been known to be so fanatical that they vandalized a plaque at Chabad headquarters because it referred to Schneerson “of blessed memory,” a Hebrew honorific for the dead. A portion of the extremists believe that the rebbe is a still living messiah.
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Now, the tunnel has exposed a deep-rooted schism among the messianic movement and brought unwanted attention to a very insular community, one expert told The Post.
“The image of Israelis coming to Brooklyn to build illegal tunnels looks terrible,” said Allan Nadler, a retired rabbi and professor of Comparative Religion/Jewish Studies Emeritus at Drew University in Madison, NJ. “These Israeli army aged boys should be in the army demolishing Hamas tunnels. It all looks a little crazy.”

 

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Brooklyn synagogue tunneler says excavation was done to send message to ‘geezers’ to expand crowded holy site​

By
Social Links forMatthew Sedacca
Published Jan. 13, 2024, 7:50 a.m. ET


















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MORE ON:HASIDIC JUDAISM​

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• Extremist Jewish teens secretly ‘hired migrants’ to dig covert synagogue tunnel ‘Shawshank’-style​

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• Kevin McCarthy courts upstate New York Orthodox Jews in bid to save House majority​

They didn’t dig being cramped.
The band of “rogue” Orthodox Jews who dug New York City’s most bizarre tunnel did so to send a message to “geezers” in their sect that they needed more room to pray, one of the excavators exclusively told The Post.
The 30-year-old, who requested anonymity for fear of legal consequences, said he and at least 50-like-minded members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement took to shoveling as a brazen statement to their community’s elders — to get off their tuchuses and expand the sanctuary at their Crown Heights headquarters.
“We were sick and tired of being stuck in a cramped synagogue that could take 15 minutes to leave during the high holiday services,” said the member, whose family has been praying at the synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway for generations.
“The point was to start an initiative on our own and then we put the old geezers in a spot where they . . . can take the initiative and go ahead” to complete the expansion, he added.




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The Chabad group, made up mostly of teens and 20-somethings, began planning their “chunnel” excavation as early as 2020, driven by a mix of boredom and desire to fulfill what they believe was a goal by the late Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson to expand the synagogue, he said.
Schneerson died in 1994, but today, the renowned holy site’s size has remained unchanged, leaving congregants packed like a tin of smoked kippers, the digger kvetched, explaining that the room can comfortably hold a few hundred people, but can swell to thousands trying to squeeze in during the high holidays.
“You can’t fit a broomstick in there,” he said. “Imagine an emergency and everyone running — I don’t want to think what can happen.”
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The band of “rogue” Orthodox Jews who dug New York City’s most bizarre tunnel did so to send a message to “geezers” in their sect that they needed more room to pray, one of the excavators exclusively told The Post.
By the time the man joined the digging project in September 2022, a third of the tunnel — or about 20 feet — had already been completed, he said.
A text viewed by The Post and interviews with two others in the Chabad community corroborated the man’s involvement in the project.
The excavation was supported by a “silent majority” in the Chabad community who believed the synagogue desperately needed to be expanded, he claimed.
“The thing was way overdue,” he said, insisting that “90% of Chabad agrees expansion [of the synagogue] needs to happen, and quickly.”
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesperson, bashed the radical member’s claim that he and other diggers represented a “movement” in Chabad.
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The Chabad group planned their ‘chunnel’ excavation efforts as early as 2020, driven by a mix of boredom and desire to fulfill what they believe was a goal by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson to expand the synagogue.Gregory P. Mango
“There is no righteous justification, theological or otherwise, for the violent and reckless behavior of these young agitators,” Seligson told The Post, calling any attempt to link their underground activity with the wishes of the Rebbe “an abomination.”
“This is a small group of rogue, and frankly, unwell youths who in their delusion demolished a potentially load-bearing wall, desecrated a synagogue and caused an enormous amount of pain and damage.”
Donations covered the group’s tools as well as other necessities like support beams, while Hasidic professional contractors were brought in to ensure the excavation “was done safely,” the digger said.
The Talmudic tunnelers managed to hollow out 40 feet over three-and-a-half years, but in November, the group hired “Spanish-speaking” migrants to “finish the job,” the 30-year-old said.
“The migrants were brought in to give the project a punt,” he said, admitting that they worked harder and more frequently than the Chabad men, but also made more noise, which ultimately tipped off the neighbors and synagogue elders.
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Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesperson, bashed the radical member’s claim that he and other diggers represented a “movement” or “breakaway group” in Chabad.@FrumTikTok / X
The covert construction exploded into the public’s eye when the Chabad’s leaders attempted to bring cement workers to fill in the tunnel. On Monday, chaos broke out when police were called in after some extremists attempted to fend off the cement laborers from entering the hollowed-out space, resulting in cops arresting nine men ages 19 to 21.
Four of the men were charged with obstruction, with two facing an additional charge of criminal mischief for allegedly destroying a synagogue wall in front of police. A fifth youngster was charged with obstruction for interfering with police attempts to arrest his fellow rebels, according to the complaint
An investigation by the city Department of Building found that the amateur diggers did not properly shore up the tunnel, leading the city to issue a partial vacate order for two single-story extension buildings connected to the synagogue complex over concerns about their structural stability.
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DOB also issued a full vacate order for a two-story building after inspectors discovered fire-rated walls had been torn down in the cellar as well as the first floor.
On Wednesday, concrete was poured into affected areas “to shore up the damaged walls” in coordination with city inspectors, Seligson wrote on X.
“We look forward to the sanctity of the synagogue being restored, and it returning to a place of prayer, Torah study and inspiration, so that its light can continue to emanate to the world.”