Brooklyn synagogue: Orthodox Jewish students hired ‘Mexicans’ to dig secret tunnel ‘Shawshank’ style

A historic Brooklyn synagogue that serves as the powerful Hasidic Jewish movement was thrashed this week, leading to a brawl between worshippers and police after the discovery of secret underground tunnel. In a startling revelation, the NY POST has found that extremist students from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community secretly employed migrant workers to assist them in constructing the tunnel.

A historic Brooklyn synagogue that serves as the center of an influential Hasidic Jewish movement was trashed this week.(AP )

Using simple tools, six renegade members from the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement discreetly started excavating the tunnel. A source from the Orthodox community told the POST that they tucked the “dirt into their pockets” in order to conceal their work from the leaders of the sect and the general public.

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“You’ve seen the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’? That’s what these young men did at first: They dug and put the dirt in their pockets,” said a member of the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights, Eitan Kalmowitz.

According to Kalmowitz, the men, who were mostly in their 20s, recruited a group of migrant labourers to complete the job, referring to the workers as “Mexicans.” They all resided in a abandoned building that featured a men’s ritual bath near Chabad world headquarters during the course of the covert activity.

The migrants, who lived in the building for three weeks, completed their work correctly. “Because it was a covert operation, they ate and slept there,” Kalmowitz said.

Tunnel was not sufficiently reinforced & left two buildings unstable

The 60 feet long illegal tunnel — dug under the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights — was inadequately fortified and jeopardised structural integrity of two buildings, NY Times reported.

According to New City building inspectors, the tunnel was constructed without approval or permits.

On Monday, the Jewish youth staged protest when the leader of the group tried to seal it off. The protest gradually escalated as police moved in to make arrests. The officials stated that young men in the community recently built the passage to the sanctuary in secret.

The Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters is a highly respected Jewish facility that welcomes thousands of visitors annually, including religious leaders and international students.

City inspectors and police offers outside the Brooklyn borough, NY, headquarters of the Chabad movement.(AP )

However, police barricades kept the synagogue closed on Tuesday while building safety inspectors examined whether the illegal tunnel may have caused structural damage to the renowned site.

The exact origin and purpose of the tunnel that incited the chaos remained the subject of debate.

The tunnel was discovered in early December, reported Jewish publication Forward. The synagogue leadership and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement have been engaged in a long dispute over possession of the building.

How and why was tunnel built?

According to Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesman, the route is thought to have started in the basement of an abandoned apartment building behind the headquarters, snaking under a number of offices and lecture halls until finally connecting to the synagogue.

Calling the construction a “rogue act of vandalism” carried out by a group of misguided young men, Seligson denounced the “extremists who broke through the wall to the synagogue, damaging the sanctuary, in a bid to safeguard their unauthorised access”.

On the other hand, proponents of the tunnel claimed they were implementing a long-term “expansion” strategy conceived by Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the former leader of the Chabad movement.

Schneerson, who died in 1994, oversaw the Chabad-Lubavitch for more than 40 years, reviving a Hasidic religious community that had been annihilated by the Holocaust. But his headquarters remains a prominent centre for the Jewish religion even after his passing away.

What is Chabad-Lubavitch movement?

Chabad-Lubavitch is a significant movement within mainstream Jewish tradition with its origins in the Chassidic movement, also known as Hasidic Judaism, of the 18th century.

However, the movement has divisions within it, despite the movement’s broad reach and its mission to welcome Jews at all levels of religious activity.

The movement was divided between those who believed the Rabbi was the Messiah and had not died, and the more mainstream leadership who believed the Rebbe had died and the movement’s purpose was to implement his teachings.

These differences were seemingly appeared during the tunnel dispute at 770 Eastern Parkway.

Here’s what police found

The tunnel was eight feet wide, with a five-foot ceiling and “inadequate rudimentary shoring in place,” police said . There were multiple locations beneath nearby buildings with basement-level wall holes.

“It was empty other than dirt, tools and debris from workers,” said the Department of Buildings.

“Our investigation has found that a single linear underground tunnel (approximately 60 feet long, 8 feet wide and with a ceiling height of 5 feet) had been illegally excavated underneath a single-story extension,” the city inspectors’ report stated.

“The tunnel was found to have inadequate rudimentary shoring in place, and wall openings had been created in several areas of the adjacent buildings at the basement levels,” the report added.

Full vacate and emergency work order

This week, city engineers discovered that the tunnel construction compromised two structures, leading to structural stability. Therefore, partial vacate orders were issued at both building.

Officials have issued full vacate order to 302 Kingston Ave due to fire safety concerns after it was discovered that fire-rated walls were removed from the building’s first floor and cellar.

The other buildings were not required to be evacuated, they said.

In order to swiftly stabilize the illegal excavation, emergency work orders were issued by adding “professionally-designed engineered shoring, and if needed, backfilling the tunnel”.

Spokesman for the NYC Department of Buildings Andrew Rudansky told The Messenger, “We will continue to monitor the progress of this emergency stabilization work, and if necessary, we are ready to take additional actions that may be required in the interest of public safety.”

No criminal charges filed against arrested youngsters

No criminal charges were filed against the arrested young men in connection to the crimes related to the creation of the tunnel, said their lawyer, Levi Huebner. He described the arrested people as students who were driven by activism.

“Students can get a little bit enthused once in a while,” he said.