We have to talk about…the mysterious tunnel found under a Brooklyn synagogue
Why did a group of young Hasidic Jews dig a tunnel underneath a historic Brooklyn synagogue? Is there a simple explanation for its existence or was there something more nefarious at play?
The last few months has seen tunnels in the news a lot. Most recently of course have been the vast labyrinth of tunnels under the Gaza Strip, built by Hamas to covertly move and hide people, goods and armaments. According to the Israeli military, there could be as much as 300 miles of tunnels with dozens of access points throughout Gaza.
Then there’s the Fehrmarnbelt tunnel currently being built between Germany and Denmark. Scheduled to open in 2029, this is one of Europe’s biggest infrastructure projects aimed at significantly reducing the travel time between Hamburg and Copenhagen. Costing 10 billion Euros and located 40 meters below the Baltic Sea, it will be the world’s longest combined rail and road tunnel, with a two track railway and four lane motorway. The journey through the 18km tunnel itself will take ten minutes by car.
They’ve also been tunnelling Down Under too. Later this year, a new addition to Sydney’s Metro service will run approximately 24 km from Westmead to the Sydney CBD. The new stretch of underground will comprise nine stations and extend the Sydney Metro network which opened in 2019.
And this year also marks the 80th anniversary of one of the most famous tunnelling projects in history. On 24 March 1944, following the covert excavation of no less than three tunnels, a daring mass escape took place from the German prisoner of war camp, Stalag Luft III. Although ultimately unsuccessful, it was a remarkable achievement and the story was subsequently told in the classic 1963 movie The Great Escape.
But perhaps the most unusual tunnelling story of recent years was uncovered in New York. Although it wasn’t particularly long, it too was a covert operation and the reason for its existence is still the subject of considerable speculation, for this tunnel wasn’t dug by wannabe escapees or structural engineers, but by Orthodox Jews.
The first reports of a tunnel under the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, surfaced on Monday 8 January 2024. Initially, it sounded like it might have been built as some form of escape route out of the building in the event it was attacked or came under siege. But as more information came to light, the purpose of the tunnel was as mysterious as the Hasidic Jews themselves.
Not surprisingly, the discovery of the tunnel and the subsequent riot in the synagogue quickly became a viral news story, but the more I read, the more confused I became as to what it was all about. Having piqued my interest, I decided to dig deeper and try and unearth what actually took place.
Although there’s lots of information out there, trying to decipher what appears to be factual, with what appears to be conjecture is quite the challenge. So let’s begin at the beginning…
Setting the scene:
770 Eastern Parkway is a site of huge importance in the Lubavitch community. Indeed, the former home of the late Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher rabbi, has been described as the closest thing to holy ground in Brooklyn for Hasidim.
Purchased in 1940, the 100-year-old building is part of a complex housing a yeshiva, a synagogue, a library and offices, and is a destination for thousands of visitors every year. The three-gabled brick building itself — known to Chabadniks simply as ‘770’ — is considered so meaningful that replicas have been built all over the world, from Australia to Argentina to a rural Chabad village in Israel.
It would appear the chaos of 8 January 2024 was the culmination of a controversy that began when the tunnel was first discovered in early December 2023.
That itself was the latest chapter in a multi-year battle between the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and synagogue leadership for control of the iconic building.
Twenty years ago, in 2004, a violent incident over a plaque outside the building led to a lawsuit as to which of two Chabad organisations was its proper owner. In 2006, a New York court gave control of 770 to the Agudath Chaseidi Chabad and legal proceedings have continued ever since.
Who are Chabad-Lubavitch?
Chabad-Lubavitch is one of the most influential orthodox Jewish Hasidic organisations. New York City is home to approximately 200,000 Hasidic Jews, a fraction of the city’s Jewish population. With some 1.6 million Jews, New York City boasts a bigger Jewish community than any other city in the world. And nearly half of them live in Brooklyn.
Hasidism is a religious movement with Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in what is now western Ukraine, but was then part of Poland. It spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe and today most of those affiliated with the movement — known as hassidim — live in Israel and the United States.
Members practice a strict form of Judaism that adheres to closely to life from a bygone age, in terms of how they behave, how they dress, how they worship and in speaking Yiddish, a language based on High German fused with many elements from Hebrew and historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews in Central Europe since the 9th century.
It’s estimated that Hasidic Jews account for around 5% of the global Jewish population. However, within Hasidism, there are many different sects — a dozen or so with large followings and over a hundred with much smaller numbers.
Some of them are much more extreme than others and hold very different views. For example, the right wing Satmars — which constitute some 20% of all Hasidim — are known for their extreme conservatism and are hostile to the State of Israel, with those living in the country refusing to participate in elections.
Another large Hasidic group — accounting for around 13% of the Hasidic population — is Chabad-Lubavitch which was founded in what today is Belarus in 1775. After fleeing the Nazi’s at the start of World War II, the rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchack Schneersohn, moved from Warsaw to the USA where he established much of the Chabad’s current structure.
In the years that followed, especially under the leadership of his son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Chabad-Lubavitch grew to become one of the world’s most widespread Jewish movements. From its base in the Crown Heights neighbourhood of Brooklyn, it established hundreds of Chabad centres around the world.
However, following Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn’s death in 1994, a successor has yet to be appointed. While some believe he will be resurrected and others believe he never died in the first place, the long-running dispute over his succession has led to the formation of several offshoot Chabad groups.
The Crown Heights Chabad community has its own rabbinical court and community council.
With each sect led by their own rebbe, and each having their own interpretation of hasidic laws, tensions between one sect and another inevitably occur from time to time. In the 1980s for example, there were several assaults on Chabad Hasidim by Satmar Hasidim.
This appears to be another of those times.
The tunnel’s discovery:
During November and December 2023, numerous people on social media claimed they heard Yiddish and what sounded like digging under their ground floor apartments near 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.
The tunnel was discovered by construction workers digging a trench for a water line.
Initial reports said the tunnel was believed to have started in the basement of an empty apartment building behind the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters.
After the tunnel’s discovery, the leadership of Beis Chayeinu — the Chabad synagogue that meets in 770 — hired structural engineers to determine the extent of the damage and the safety issue it posed. Eventually, they decided to have it filled in.
According to the New York Times, city officials found that the tunnel was not sufficiently reinforced and compromised the stability of two buildings.
The tunnel itself:
At first, all we knew was that the tunnel had been secretly built by a group of young men who first gained entry into an abandoned Jewish men’s mikvah, or ritual bath, and that it led to an abandoned women’s mikvah, around the corner on Union Street.
Early reports revealed that access to the tunnel was from behind a 2ft x 2ft grate where a hole led to a 3-foot-high, 50-feet-long dirt tunnel extending around two corners of the headquarter’s abandoned men’s ritual bath.
Subsequently, more specific details came in an email from the NYC Department of Buildings following their investigations on 9 January 2024. They found the tunnel was in fact “a single linear tunnel, approximately 60-feet-long, 8-foot-wide and with a ceiling height of 5 feet.” They also stated that the tunnel was “empty except for dirt, tools and debris.”
In addition, they confirmed the illegal work “undermined the structural stability” of 770, requiring them to issue emergency work orders to immediately stabilise the illegal excavation and seal up the openings.
What was the tunnel for?
Initially it was unclear what exactly motivated the creation of the tunnel. For that reason, there was much speculation, some of which was pretty wild.
However, as more information came to the fore, its purpose began to become clearer, with reports saying that the people behind its excavation had hoped to expand 770, although at first it was not obvious as to how the tunnel would accomplished that.
One man told AP that the diggers believed that by connecting the synagogue with the empty space behind it, they were fulfilling the expansionist wishes made by Rabbi Schneerson in 1988, six years before his death.
“That’s what the rabbi wanted, that’s what everybody wants.”
This theory was supported by another community member who claimed the tunnel was just a means to expand the synagogue and haul out dirt. The real project was digging out a large enough space to seat hundreds more people.
Apparently, expanding the synagogue wasn’t just a spiritual issue, but also a safety issue as it becomes so overcrowded during Rosh Hashanah that people routinely faint and ambulances have to be stationed outside.
An initiative begun in February 2023 and called Expand 770 aimed to drum up support to augment the building, citing a call by Schneerson in 1991 regarding the “need and duty to expand and broaden” the movement’s headquarters.
In a video message posted in February 2023, the initiative’s founder, Levi Jacobson said:
“Everyone wants to visit 770, but 770 is way too small for what it needs to be.” adding “The Rebbe urged that each and every Jew should participate physically and monetarily with expanding 770.”
And it’s highly likely that because of this, some Israeli students decided to dig out a cavern big enough to hold an additional 600 worshippers.
It appears that he group involved in the construction effort come from a faction of Chabadniks who believe Schneerson is the messiah, known as “meshichists.”
A sign with a slogan declaring Schneerson to be the messiah hung on the wall of the synagogue, and multiple people involved were wearing kippahs bearing the same slogan.
Zalmy Grossman, a Btritish student who lives in Israel, but was in the synagogue during Monday’s incident said he supported the effort. Although he claimed not to be a meshichist, he was wearing a yellow badge associated with the group.
Grossman, who also denied being part of the group that broke down the walls, told the New York Jewish Week:
“As the holiest place in the world, we have to expand.”
When one appreciates the level of fanaticism those involved might have felt, the need to expand the synagogue and especially to fulfil the wishes of their spiritual ‘leader’ does lend credibility to this being their intention. After all, what other logical explanation makes sense? And remember, the need for it to be done in secret was the synagogue was not operated by the people who owned the building it was part of.
Although it’s still to be confirmed how many people were involved in the excavation, sources tended to agree they began digging within the last year or two.
Beyond the notion of orthodox Jews digging a secret tunnel, what also captured many peoples’ attention was the sight of bloodied mattresses and a stroller. This led to numerous conspiracy theories about what they were used for, but there could be a very simple explanation: they were just part of the digging equipment.
Mattresses could have been used for sound deadening and to make it more comfortable for the diggers, while strollers could have been used to help move the dirt. With hasidic families usually having many children, both would have been easy to get ones hands on without raising suspicion.
What happened on 8 January 2024?
The chaos that occured on 8 January 2024 began that morning with the arrival of cement trucks and workers brought in to repair the synagogue’s damaged wall and seal off the tunnel. The trucks began pumping cement to the tunnel but were forced to stop as young Hasidic men tried to disconnect the hosing and started vandalising the trucks. The group then broke into the synagogue and attempted to prevent the work taking place.
The NYPD were called to the synagogue to deal with “a disorderly group who had unlawfully entered the premises and damaged a wall.” Upon entering the building, a large number of Hasidic men clashed with police. Twelve were arrested, all between the ages of 19 and 22. Four were charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment, while two were charged with attempted hate crime.
According to Haredi news source Collive.com, the students who tried to stop the filling of the tunnel were mostly from Israel and associated with Chabad Messianism — whose adherents believe that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, was the Messiah. A different group, Agudath Chasidei Chabad — which controls the building — publicly disavows those beliefs. However, the synagogue itself is controlled by another rival group, Beis Chayeinu, and continues to be contested territory.
A subsequent statement from Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters said that “the group of young agitators” were “primarily in the U.S. on student visas,” adding “Steps are being taken to revoke their student visas and repatriate them to their countries of origin.”
What’s happened since?
Local Jewish leaders have condemned the tunnel-digging — which apparently has destabilised two buildings. Rabbi Yosef Braun, of the Crown Heights Beis Din, railed against “people who think they know better than everybody else in every single matter are just destroying and demolishing and destroying physical structures, destroying spiritual structures.”
The synagogue itself has been temporarily closed and the tunnel has now been filled in.
The Department of Buildings issued two violations of work conducted without a permit.
So far, we’ve not heard directly from any of those involved with regards to their actual intentions. Neither have the NYPD released any further details based upon their investigations.
“The Chabad-Lubavitch community is pained by the vandalism of a group of young agitators who damaged the synagogue,” said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, a prominent community leader, in a public statement. “These odious actions will be investigated, and the sanctity of the synagogue will be restored.”
Despite this, there have been suggestions that dealing with the situation has actually made the two factions fighting for control of 770 come together for the first time in thirty years, with hope that the synagogue expansion might happen after all.
The four charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment are due to appear in court on 28 January 2024.
What’s more, the incident sparked a wave of antisemitic conspiracies online. These included allegations that the tunnel was being used for trafficking children, echoing centuries-old antisemitic blood libels.
In one widely circulated video, a Jewish man seen emerging from a sidewalk grate is said to be part of a secret tunnel network.
By 9 January 2024 the grate had been resealed. A look inside revealed a well-lit basement filled with stacks of blue plastic crates and wooden planks.
On 11 January 2024, The New York Post provided some interesting new details, reporting that extremist students from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic group secretly hired migrant labourers to help them build the tunnel.
Apparently the Mexican workers slept and ate at the abandoned building that contained a men’s ritual bath for three weeks during their clandestine work.
The Post also confirmed the tunnel’s purpose was to fulfil a religious obligation to expand the holy site.
In a statement to the newspaper, Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch, said:
“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 unauthorised access.”
Another Chabad rabbi who wished to remain anonymous said:
“They are fanatical. They are part of a small extreme group.”
It appears the students believed redemption would come to them if they fulfilled Rabbi Schneerson’s command to expand the group’s holiest site.
Allan Nadler, a retired rabbi and professor of comparative religion/Jewish studies emeritus at Drew University in Madison, NJ said:
“The image of Israelis coming to Brooklyn to build illegal tunnels looks terrible. These boys should be in the Israeli army demolishing Hamas tunnels. It all looks a little crazy.”
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens, not forgetting an array of automotive exotica.
On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.
He has also written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s blatant Led Zep rip-off, ‘Still Of The Night’, Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and the little known Queen track ‘Cool Cat.’
Most recently, Gary has penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ as well as ‘Believe It Or Not’ a look into the rise of fake news and his latest essay ‘Nadir: How the cost of living crisis has brought so many in broken Britain to the depths of despair.’
All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians including the likes of Royal Blood, Joe Satriani and Wolf Alice.
