Chaos erupted on Monday night as a group of Orthodox Jews clashed with New York City police officers at the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The small-scale riot, which led to 12 arrests, broke out as police and construction workers attempted to fill in a network of secret tunnels connecting the historic synagogue to nearby buildings.
The illegal underground passageways were first discovered by city authorities in December after local residents reported hearing suspicious sounds coming from underneath their homes at night. At the same time, construction workers installing a new waterline in the neighborhood uncovered evidence of a significant excavation, according to a community reporting site.
An ensuing investigation revealed the extent of the illegal construction beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters (also called “the 770” after its address at 770 Eastern Parkway). According to reports, members of the local Orthodox Jewish community began digging in the basement of an abandoned women’s mikvah—a ritual bath used in Jewish purification ceremonies—at the intersection of Union Street and Kingston Ave, burrowing all the way to the 770 around the corner.
Video taken inside the building showed a space cluttered with trash and, oddly, abandoned baby buggies and high-chairs, as well as a dark, dirt-walled passage described as “eerily similar to those used by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”
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The tunnel exited into the women’s section of the 100-year-old synagogue from behind a wood-paneled wall.
Details on exactly why the tunnel was built are scarce, and speculation has swirled about the motives and timeframe for the illegal construction. Some reports suggest that the tunnel was dug during the COVID lockdowns to access the closed-off building. Others suggest that the excavation only took place in the last six months. Sources have yet to identify who was responsible for digging the passage and there is apparently an ongoing legal dispute over who actually owns the 770. However, some have indicated that this was an attempt to “expand” the property—although how a structurally dubious tunnel would have helped achieve this is unclear.
Upon discovering the tunnel (described as “amateurish” by inspectors), authorities feared for the stability of nearby buildings and immediately ordered that it be filled in with concrete to prevent a collapse.
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On Monday afternoon, construction crews arrived in cement trucks to begin sealing up the tunnel but were quickly met with a hostile response. Dozens of Jewish men, most believed to be in their teens and twenties, began harassing the workers and vandalizing the trucks, prompting the police to intervene.
As the NYPD arrived, the men forced their way inside the building and began tearing up the entrance to the tunnel, throwing aside pews, ripping up wooden wall panels, and taking sledgehammers to the underlying bricks to expose a cavernous entryway nearly 20 feet wide.
In the scuffle, soiled mattresses were pulled from the entrance and cast aside.
After several men forced their way into the opening, police began placing them in handcuffs and physically removing them from the building.
Meanwhile, outside the building, officers attempted to control another large group. In one particularly odd video, a Jewish man is seen squeezing out of a hole in a sewer grate before scurrying off without explanation. This suggests additional entrances to the tunnel or perhaps other passages leading elsewhere.
In total, 12 men were arrested at the 770. No injuries were reported, although one man allegedly attempted to pepper spray an officer. According to local Jewish outlet Collive.com, those responsible for the destruction were mostly Israeli immigrants associated with the sect of Chabad Messianism, the adherents of which believe that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, was the Messiah.
Synagogue leader Rabbi Yosef Braun condemned the violence and urged the local Jewish community to “call [the vandals] out in all possible ways and strong terms.”
The leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters issued a statement saying that the community was “pained by the vandalism of a group of young agitators who damaged the synagogue” and thanked the NYPD for its “professionalism and sensitivity.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer covering politics, culture, and business for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X (Twitter).
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