NYC Hasidic Jews Go Wild After Police Discover Secret Tunnel, Several Arrests Made

It took months, perhaps years for a small crew of Lubavitchers to dig a secret passageway underneath the famed headquarters of the Chabad movement. They would not let it be filled so easily.

The New York Police Department was called Monday to 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, where a number of Chabad students — most in their teens and early twenties — mounted a last stand against construction crews called to fill in the tunnel connecting the synagogue at that location to the defunct Chabad mikvah around the corner.

In videos circulating on Chabad community news sources and social media, Lubavitchers can be seen ripping down the wood paneling on the south wall of the synagogue, revealing a cavernous concrete space about 20 feet wide underneath the women’s section. Several young men were sitting or standing in the space — apparently to prevent it from being filled — as scores of others watched or recorded video on their phones. The length of the tunnel is unclear from the videos.