2024-01-10 15:13:33
A video clip revealed the interior of the secret tunnel located under the Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, due to which clashes broke out after members of the extremist Chabad movement attempted to prevent construction workers who came to block the tunnel, describing it as “illegal.”
10 people were arrested after the New York Police Department was called to implement the decision to forcefully close the tunnel, and a number of youth from the extremist movement attempted to confront the policemen.
Last December, the tunnel was discovered under the world headquarters of the Chabad movement – the largest Jewish organization in the world – a famous building in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, and synagogue leaders summoned construction engineers to assess the damage.
In video clips circulating on social media, a cavernous concrete space about 20 feet wide appears below the women’s section of the movement’s building, according to the American New York Post website.
Dirt
The posted footage leads viewers down stairs and through hallways into a dirt-filled room where a roughly 2-foot-by-2-foot barrier has been removed from the wall of the building next door.
The videographer then crawls through the hole, which leads into a 3-foot-high dirt tunnel that reportedly extends about 50 feet and around two corners to the site of the headquarters of an enclosed men’s ritual bath.
Photos shared on CrownHeights.Info show a “beer” can on the side of the tunnel and an electrical wire hanging down.
In the dusty room of the adjacent building, clothes and other items can be seen scattered all over the place, apparently left by excavators who broke away from the Jewish Chabad movement.
Ritual bath
According to the New York Post, members of the Chabad movement introduced by the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson have been digging the tunnel under the 100-year-old synagogue for nearly a year.
The tunnel appears to be designed to reach the — or ritual bath — around the corner in order to “expand” the synagogue, according to the Jewish Forward website.
The underground path was not discovered until last month, when neighbors reported strange noises coming from beneath their homes, Israel National News reported.
“Some time ago, a group of extremist students breached a few walls on properties adjacent to the synagogue at 784-788 Eastern Parkway, giving them unauthorized access,” Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesman, said in a statement.
He added, “Earlier today, a cement truck was brought to repair those walls. These efforts were stopped by the extremists who stormed the wall leading to the synagogue, and vandalized the sanctuary, in an attempt to reach the unauthorized tunnel.”
“They have since been arrested and the building has been closed pending a structural integrity review,” he continued. “Lubavitch officials have attempted to take control of the building through the New York State court system; unfortunately, despite the continued victory in court,” Seligson said. The process continued for years.”
“This is obviously very sad for the Lubavitch movement, and for the Jewish community around the world. We hope and pray that we can quickly restore the sanctity and dignity of this holy place,” he added.
Damage assessment
After the tunnel was discovered, the synagogue leadership called in structural engineers to assess the damage to the building, and on Monday, cement mixers arrived to fill it, sparking a riot.
A group of renegade Orthodox Jewish men, most of whom are believed to be in their teens and early 20s, were filmed tearing up planks and rafters as they desperately tried to get into their tunnel.
The picture shows one of the Orthodox Jewish men participating in these efforts emerging from the tunnel.
Other footage from the synagogue on Eastern Parkway showed police trying to fend off dozens of Hasidic men as they forced their way over the 20-foot-wide fence, collapsing onto the wooden benches in their anger.
Sources told the newspaper that at least ten men were detained. The sources said that ten of them were charged with misdemeanor charges, another was charged with obstructing government administration, while another received a summons on charges of disorderly conduct.
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