New York Police Department (NYPD) officers responded Monday to a clash at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the global Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Orthodox Jews, over an unauthorized tunnel was found leading to a synagogue onsite.
The building is famous as the headquarters of the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who reinvigorated Judaism worldwide and who continues to inspire world leaders, including Argentinian President Javier Milei.
The Rebbe’s influence was so powerful that a small group of adherents began to declare — without his approval — that he was the Messiah. Some continue to believe that, even thirty years after his death in 1994. The dispute has led to a physical rift at the movement’s headquarters, in which the official leadership controls the building, but the messianic group controls the basement synagogue, where the Rebbe used to pray. The movement has been trying to obtain full control of the synagogue as well.
According to the Forward, a tunnel was discovered in December that leads from the basement of a nearby building and through several other properties before emerging in the synagogue.
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The tunnel’s precise purpose remains unclear, but it appears to have been dug over the past two years, likely by the messianic group, with the intent of obtaining secret access to the synagogue at 770.
When the mainstream leadership brought in a construction company to fill the tunnel, clashes ensued, leading to ten arrests.
DEVELOPING STORY:
Chaos At 770: A chaotic scene at the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, after Bochurim ripped wooden panels to prevent a cement truck from sealing off the recently discovered tunnels.The NYPD are on scene, and 770 will be closed shortly to regain control. pic.twitter.com/ETvEYqtqNI
— Frum TikTok (@FrumTikTok) January 8, 2024
In a statement, the official leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch thanked the NYPD for intervening, and decried “vandalism” onsite.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
