Tunnel found under a New York synagogue: Watch out for false claims

If you only have a minute: 

• Photos and video began circulating online on January 8, showing the New York Police Department (NYPD) raiding a Brooklyn synagogue serving as the center of an influential Hasidic Jewish movement. The images show young congregants facing off with police and damaging the building before being arrested.

• Another video circulating online shows a basement entrance to the tunnel, while another shows a member of the community trying to escape through a sewer grate onto the street.

• Rumours are circulating that the police discovered the tunnel when, in fact, the Jewish community discovered the tunnel dug by fringe members in late December and began work to close it on January 8. They called the police when the young radicals resisted their attempts.

• A number of tweets have falsely claimed that the tunnel leads to the Jewish Children’s Museum, located just across the street from the synagogue, suggesting that the tunnel was used for child trafficking. However, the New York Department of Buildings did not say that the tunnel went under any roads. 

• It appears that the dissident faction built these tunnels illegally in an attempt to expand the synagogue.

The fact check, in detail: 

What happened on the evening of January 8 at the synagogue located at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn? The synagogue is part of the complex that makes up the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, home to an influential movement within Hasidic Judaism. The headquarters, often known as just 770, is one of the most significant religious sites in the city.

Different photos and videos shared by the local press show dozens of congregants seeming to face off with law enforcement and ripping off some of the building’s wooden siding. Other videos show congregants gathered in a tunnel dug behind a wall in the synagogue that they had partially destroyed that night.

In the ensuing hours, local media outlets like Collive and Crown Heights posted videos online showing police arresting congregants. A total of nine people were arrested, according to American news agency the Associated Press.

Other images soon appeared on social media. One image showed a Jewish man trying to flee through a sewer grate. Rumours about secret “Jewish tunnels” dug under the synagogue and their reported use began to circulate. 

A tunnel denounced by the Chabad Lubavitch community itself 

Several posts on X in English – like this one, which garnered more than seven million views – or in French claimed that the NYPD discovered the tunnel on January 8.

However, it was the Chabad Lubavitch community that found the tunnel dug by the fringe faction. The local news site that covers the Jewish community in Brooklyn, CrownHeights.info, made the discovery public on December 22.

Two days later, this media shared another video. The footage begins in a messy basement and then focuses in on a narrow, dug-out passage. It doesn’t show where the passage leads. This basement is apparently located in a building adjacent to the synagogue, still in the Chabad Lubavitch complex.

According to several articles published in the local press, the congregants who built the tunnel seem to be part of a small messianic faction within the Lubavitch movement, which itself is part of Hasidic Judaism.  

This faction believes that a former leader of the Lubavitch community, a rabbi by the name of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, is the messiah and that he is still living. In recent years, this fringe faction has come into conflict with the rest of the community. 

On January 8, authorities from the synagogue brought in a cement truck in to close the passage, as shown in photos released by the local press. However, the young people from this faction prevented the workers from carrying out the task. This led to the synagogue’s decision to call the police, according to one of the spokesmen for the Chabad-Lubavitch community, Motti Seligson, who was contacted by the FRANCE 24 Observers team. 

The leaders of the Lubavitch community also denounced the actions of this faction on January 8. 

Motti Seligson condemned the group, which he called “extremist students”, while the president of the Chabad Lubavitch community, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, said in an Instagram post that “the Chabad-Lubavitch community is pained by the vandalism of a group of young agitators”.

A tunnel with no links to the Jewish Children’s Museum

A number of influential accounts from the American far right have circulated rumours on X that these tunnels were used for child trafficking.

Some posts claimed that the tunnel linked up with the Jewish Children’s Museum, an educational site located on the other side of the street. In particular, these tweets have pointed to a video showing a congregant fleeing from a sewer gate located on the same street as the Jewish Children’s Museum, Kingston Avenue. 

Except that the sewer grate doesn’t actually open up on the museum sidewalk. There are no indications that the tunnel was dug under the road in order to reach the museum. 

On January 10, a spokesperson for New York’s Department of Buildings, which was in charge of the investigation into the tunnel and the restoration of the basements, described the tunnel: “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 Department of Buildings is also looking into the impact of the tunnel on surrounding buildings and said it is undertaking “emergency stabilization work”. Partial vacate orders had been issued for a number of affected buildings and a full vacate order was issued for another building.

The Department of Buildings has not mentioned an impact on any buildings outside of the Chabad Lubavitch complex or any issues with Kingston Avenue, which would be the case if the tunnel went under the road. In fact, they specifically said that neighbouring buildings had not been impacted. 

The sewer drain was sealed on the evening of January 8. 

Nine men between 19 and 21 years old were charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. One was also charged with obstruction of governmental administration.

None of those arrested were charged with anything related to paedophilia or child trafficking. 

The video, which was first shared by the media outlet Crown Heights on December 24 (see image above), also circulated widely online. Many of the posts claimed that the Jewish community had built an entire network of tunnels. However, the video actually showed “a building next door that used to hold a Jewish ritual bath” and seems to be where the single tunnel began, Louis Keene, a journalist with the Jewish media outlet Brooklyn Forward, told our team. 

An expansion project for the synagogue? 

Why was this tunnel built? “Most answers point to a desire to expand the synagogue underneath 770”, Keene told our team. “The project to expand the synagogue dates back decades but it has stalled for various reasons. So the thinking was, ‘let’s just do it ourselves.’”

Two men who said they spoke with some of those who broke through the synagogue wall told the New York Times that the motive was to hasten an expansion of 770.

He also said that the group wanted to carry out the wishes of Rabbi Schneerson, the man revered as a messiah by this faction.  It had been his aim to expand the synagogue. 

A website calling for the expansion claimed that the rabbi believed “every Jew” should participate in the expansion of “770”, the address of the synagogue. 

It is hard to know how long this illegal operation was underway. Some media outlets reported that construction must have begun at least a few months before it was discovered.