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Chilling video takes us inside secret tunnel underneath Brooklyn synagogue: Watch
Chaos broke out at the synagogue on Monday after Orthodox Jewish men tried to stop construction workers who had come to fill in a tunnel that was illegally dug
A video has revealed the inside of a secret tunnel illegally built by a group ofHasidic Jewish men beneath a Brooklyn synagogue. A video of the interior of the tunnel, shared on Instagram, takes us down the stairs and makes us cross hallways to reach a dirt-filled room. In this room, a 2-foot-by-2-foot grate has been removed from the building wall. The person making the video then crawls through the hole, leading to a roughly three-foot-high tunnel.
More photos were shared on CrownHeights.Info’s website where one can spot a beer can on the side of the tunnel. An electrical wire can be seen hanging. In the dirt-filled room of the adjacent building, clothes are scattered around along with other items.
Chaos broke out at the synagogue on Monday, January 8, after Orthodox Jewish men tried to stop construction workers who had come to fill in a tunnel that was illegally dug. The New York Police Department arrived and arrested at least 10 people.
The secret tunnel
The tunnel was discovered beneath the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, which is a well-known building in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. The construction is said to threaten the landmark’s foundation. Investigators found that several men, as part of a movementadvanced by the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson,had been carrying out the construction for the past many months.
The Chabad community is now enraged and is calling for action. The structural integrity of the surrounding buildings are also being investigated by officials in the city. There is already a legal dispute in place over the ownership of the complex.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement against the synagogue leadership involves the two sides disagreeing over who owns the hundred-year-old house legally. The Chabad is one of the largest groups of Hasidic Jews in the world.
The reason why the tunnel was being dug is unclear. However, the website Forward.comreported that the tunnel was meant to be used to reach an abandoned men's mikvah, or ritual baths. It added that the tunnel was meant to “expand” the synagogue, but it is unclear how that could be done.
The riot on Monday ensued after a cement truck tried to fill up the tunnels. Many present at the scene protested, tearing down the main synagogue’s wooden panels. Clashes with the NYPD thus began.
A statement from the headquarters said of the young men who created the chaos, according to New York Post, that “the group of young agitators” were “primarily in the U.S. on student visas.”
“These individuals have been squatting in the synagogue and attempted to take control by demolishing walls to connect the basement to the adjacent building, intending to ‘expand’ the sanctuary,” it said. “Steps are being taken to revoke their student visas and repatriate them to their countries of origin.”
