A group of Hasidic Jewish believers destroyed a well-known synagogue in New York on Monday. They clashed with the police over an illegal tunnel they had been digging for a year.
They dug the tunnel into the side of the historic synagogue, reportedly to reach a closed ritual bathhouse for women. The reason for this is not entirely clear.
The tunnel is located at Chabad-Lubavitch International Headquarters in Crown Heights. Chabad spokesperson Motti Seligson said a “group of extremist students” had secretly breached the walls of a vacant building behind the headquarters, creating an underground passageway beneath a row of office buildings and lecture halls that eventually connected to the synagogue.
Fight
After the discovery, the city conducted an emergency structural inspection, after which it was decided to fill the tunnel with concrete. Protesters wanted to put a stop to that, causing a brawl between the police and those who tried to defend the improvised passageway.
The building at 770 Eastern Parkway was once home to the movement’s leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. It attracts thousands of visitors every year. The neo-Gothic facade is immediately recognizable to followers of the Chabad movement. Replicas of the building can be found all over the world.
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