Secret tunnel in New York synagogue leads to brawl between police and worshippers

NEW YORK -- A historical Brooklyn synagogue that serves arsenic the halfway of an influential Hasidic Jewish question was trashed this week during an antithetic assemblage quality that began with the find of a concealed underground passageway and ended successful brawl betwixt worshippers and police.

The struggle erupted successful the planetary office of the Chabad-Lubavitch question successful Crown Heights, a profoundly revered Jewish tract that each twelvemonth receives thousands of visitors, including planetary students and spiritual leaders. Its Gothic Revival facade, instantly recognizable to adherents of the Chabad movement, has inspired dozens of replicas crossed the world.

But connected Tuesday, the synagogue remained closed disconnected by constabulary barricades arsenic New York City gathering information agents inspected whether a passageway dug without authoritative support whitethorn person caused structural harm to the famed property.

Officials and locals said young men successful the assemblage precocious built the transition to the sanctuary successful secret. When the group's leaders tried to seal it disconnected Monday, they staged a protestation that turned convulsive arsenic constabulary moved successful to marque arrests.

The nonstop intent and provenance of the passageway that incited the altercation remained the taxable of immoderate debate.

The passageway is believed to person started successful the basement of an bare flat gathering down the headquarters, snaking nether a bid of offices and lecture halls earlier yet connecting to the synagogue, according to Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for Chabad.

He characterized its operation arsenic a rogue enactment of vandalism committed by a radical of misguided young men, condemning the "extremists who broke done the partition to the synagogue, vandalizing the sanctuary, successful an effort to sphere their unauthorized access."

Those who supported the tunnel, meanwhile, said they were carrying retired an "expansion" program agelong envisioned by the erstwhile caput of the Chabad movement, Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Schneerson led the Chabad-Lubavitch for much than 4 decades earlier his decease successful 1994, reinvigorating a Hasidic spiritual assemblage that had been devastated by the Holocaust.

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Supporters of the enlargement said the basement synagogue had agelong been overcrowded, prompting a propulsion to annex further abstraction that immoderate successful the assemblage felt was taking excessively long. Many of those supporters subscribe to the messianic content that Schneerson is inactive alive.

"That's what the rabbi wants, that's what everybody wants," said Zalmy Grossman, a 21-year-old Brooklyn resident. He said the passageway task began precocious past twelvemonth arsenic a mode to link the synagogue with "the full bare space" down it.

Chabad leaders declined to accidental erstwhile they discovered the underground connection. But respective worshippers said connection of the tunnel's beingness had dispersed done the assemblage successful caller weeks.

The concern came to a caput Monday, erstwhile a cement motortruck arrived to seal the opening. Proponents of the passageway past staged a protestation and ripped disconnected the woody siding of the synagogue.

A constabulary section spokesperson said officers were called to the gathering successful the day to respond to a disorderly radical that was trespassing and damaging a wall.

For respective hours, constabulary pleaded with the young men to permission the entranceway to the tunnel, according to witnesses. After they refused, the officers covered the country with a achromatic curtain and entered the dusty crevasse with zip ties to detain the protesters.

"When they took the archetypal idiosyncratic retired with zip ties, that's erstwhile the outburst happened," said Baruch Dahan, a 21-year-old studying astatine the synagogue who videotaped the congregants fighting. "Almost everyone was against what they did, but arsenic soon arsenic radical saw the handcuffs determination was disorder and pushing."

Footage posted to societal media shows scores of onlookers, mostly young men, jeering astatine the NYPD's assemblage affairs officers. Some lifted woody desks into the air, sending supplication books scattering. In response, an serviceman appeared to deploy an irritating spray to disperse the group.

Nine radical - betwixt the ages of 19 and 22 - were yet arrested connected charges that included transgression mischief, reckless endangerment, and obstructing governmental administration, according to police. Another 3 received summonses for disorderly conduct.

A spokesperson for the Department of Buildings said the inspection results were pending connected Tuesday evening.

While the gathering remained closed, immoderate worshippers completed their prayers extracurricular successful the drizzling rain.

"The assemblage feels terrible," Dahan said. "It's a disgrace, alternatively of expanding, they destroyed."