‘It’s Wild Fantasy and Malevolence’: Fracas Over Tunnel Beneath Brooklyn Synagogue Leads to Torrent of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories

Video footage showing Monday's confrontation between Hasidic youth and the New York Police Department at an iconic synagogue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, went viral and has now been trending on social media for two days. The chaotic scenes, in which enthusiastic students are seen throwing benches at police officers, knocking down wooden panels and bursting out of a tunnel, have opened the floodgates to a rampant stream of invective and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about child trafficking.

“What are these New York Jews hiding in these illegal tunnels connected to a New York Jewish temple?” asked far-right, far-right online personality, self-proclaimed Post-Apocalyptic Warlord and talk show host Stew Peters on his X account on Monday.

Nine members of New York's Hasidic community were arrested at the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn. The young Jews had been digging a tunnel to connect the synagogue with at least one other nearby building to fulfill what they believe are the wishes of the deeply revered Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who is said to have wanted to expand the chronically overcrowded synagogue. . However, on Monday afternoon synagogue authorities filled the unauthorized tunnel with concrete, leading to clashes with young Jews.

Conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic vitriol surrounding the discovery of the tunnel have been circulating for days. On Tuesday, Mr. Peters provided some insights on his 6 pm Stew Peters Show segment, titled "Human Trafficking EXPOSED?"

“What do you know about these tunnels beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters?” —Stew Peters, visibly concerned, asked his guest Vincent James Foxx.

“There's a lot of information coming out about these tunnels, a lot of misinformation, I should say,” explains Foxx, whom a 2018 ProPublica investigation identified as a member of the Rise Above Movement, a California-based white supremacist group. that “I participated in fights in cities throughout California and at the 2017 Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA.” According the Southern Poverty Law CenterMr. Foxx also participated in the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol.

"There are a lot of people online who are trying to soften this situation, a lot of traditional conservatives, saying that these tunnels were a way to expand real estate," Foxx continues. “But if you look at some of the videos that come out, you see blood stained mattresses, or what we think are blood stained mattresses, the stains are brown and usually when you have old blood stains, that's what they look like. “You see baby chairs, baby car seats, and baby high chairs coming out of these tunnels.”

As he speaks, widely circulated images of what appears to be a single, dusty highchair tossed to the side on top of other debris appear on the screen.

Talk show host Mr. Peters has now repeated long-debunked claims that the Talmud gives Jews permission to have sex with children. In his X account, Peters put it in simpler language: “Pedophilia is permitted in the Talmud.”

"The passage doesn't say 'may.' It's an argument about guilt — a clear misquote," Crown Heights Jewish Community Council head Eli Cohen told the Sun on Tuesday afternoon, adding that "this guy could have led a blood libel in medieval Europe 200 years ago.”

The blood libel against the Jews centers on centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that the Jews sought “a child of Christian blood”to make matzah on Passover and other false stories about child trafficking, child sexual abuse and child murder. The blood libel was used to justify centuries of deadly violence against Jews, such as pogroms in Tsarist Russia.

Cohen was present during Monday's chaotic confrontation between young Hasidic agitators and New York police officers at the synagogue. He had rushed to the scene with a megaphone in an attempt to calm the situation. "But," he shared with the Sun, he found "a level of irrationality that he couldn't address."

It was Monday afternoon when a group of young students and alumni of the Rabbinical College, which is based at the synagogue, attempted to stop a construction company from closing illegal tunnels they had dug in an attempt to expand their place of worship. The synagogue management called the police around 3:30 p.m. When police arrived, they found the students inside the synagogue, knocking down wooden panels and beginning to break down a wall of the sanctuary with hammers. Nine young agitators were arrested and charged with attempted criminal mischief and attempted reckless endangerment, and three were issued citations for disorderly conduct.

The synagogue, which is also known as 770, in reference to its address at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, was built in 1920 and became the home of the spiritual leader of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, Rabbi. Yosef Yitzchok Schneersonwhen he arrived in the United States in 1940. His son-in-law, Menachem, reluctantly ascended to the leadership of the Lubavitch movement after the death of Rabbi Yosef in 1950.

“Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, conversations began to renovate and expand the synagogue,” a member of the Lubavitch community, who prefers to remain anonymous, told the Sun. “Because the Lubavitch group was growing. During the cornerstone-laying ceremony, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson “He told his followers that he wanted to see the building expanded, that it should grow to Union Street.”

There were architectural plans. The expansion was supposed to take place in phases. But aside from a modest renovation at the front, toward the street, the rabbi's vision has not yet been fully completed.

The robberies were “probably due to many reasons,” the community member continued to explain. “Many of these reasons are disputes over who controls the building and its use. “These disputes have gone on for decades and are still being litigated in court.”

Mr. Cohen, who emphasized that disputes among the community were not a “black and white” issue but rather “a huge gray with many, many nuances,” clarified that there is a general consensus among everyone that the synagogue needs to be expanded. Also for practical reasons, especially on holidays, the place is overflowing. People come from all over the world and it gets very crowded.

“It is imperative to expand the building,” Cohen said, “but not in this way. You do it through permits, plans and agreements.”

What is unclear is when exactly the young students, who form a small, unique fraction of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, decided to take the expansion project into their own hands and begin digging unauthorized tunnels. Eli Cohen and several other sources close to the movement believe that the excavations began in the last six months.

What is known, however, is his intention. They wanted to honor the word of their spiritual leader, who they believe is the messiah of the Jewish people.

"The youth felt this was their form of civil disobedience," said the anonymous member, who listened to a nine-minute voicemail from one of the agitators, "to tear down the walls and basically force the expansion to happen as soon as possible." soon as possible". rather than later, while he was caught up in disputes and bureaucracy.”

A short 24-second video, seen by the Sun and shared among agitators, shows a digital version of the expansion the students envisioned. A message in Hebrew letters says: This is no longer a dream, expand NOW.”

The synagogue is the basement and first floor of the historic building, a former apartment building that, according to Eli Cohen, was converted into a synagogue about 50 years ago. Next to the building, there are three smaller buildings, all attached to each other. Two of them are owned by the same religious organization that owns the synagogue and the last is an abandoned private property, with an abandoned male mikveh, a ritual bathhouse, where men purify themselves and wash before prayer.

It seems that the meter-high earth tunnel dug by the eager students was supposed to reach from the synagogue to this former bathhouse.

In mid-December, neighbors reported to the synagogue management that they were hearing strange noises. Management installed cameras that soon caught the unauthorized builders breaking into the synagogue in the middle of the night. Its tunnels were discovered and closed.

When the management sent cement trucks on Monday to close the tunnels, students began tearing off the wooden panels in the prayer hall. Others had entered the tunnel from the other side and were sitting inside with books, as a form of protest.

one of the videos It is clear that the mattresses, which have caused so much speculation, were stacked between the wooden panels and the cinder block wall. It is possible, although not confirmed, that these mattresses were placed behind the wood panels when they were installed a few years ago. Cohen told the Sun.

The community member, who spoke to the Sun, saw social media posts claiming the tunnel led to the Jewish Children's Museum, which is across the street at 792 Eastern Parkway. These posts falsely suggested that this was evidence of a child predation ring.

“First of all, the tunnel does not lead to the Jewish Children's Museum. That is simply a meaningless and factually incorrect conspiracy. There is no allegation that the tunnel passes under Kingston Avenue. It goes the wrong way from Eastern Parkway to Union Street South.”

“That anti-Semites are starting to infer things about child sexual abuse,” he added, “and, frankly, making up facts is worrying, but it has nothing to do with the situation. “These people will find any reason to express their anti-Semitism.”

In fact, anti-Semites were having fun on X, formerly known as Twitter. Pelham @Resist_05, for example, falsely posted that “it is now almost certain that the tunnels found at the Chabad synagogue in Brooklyn were designed to track child sex. This released video shows that the Jewish synagogue had dystopian tunnels made from stained mattresses that were sent for forensic analysis. Forensics have also taken items such as high chairs and baby clothes. A group of student extremists were blamed for the child abduction tunnels and attempted to bury the tunnels with cement before coroners could begin their investigations. Child sexual abuse advocates say Israel has become a 'haven for pedophiles' and many American Jews are hiding from justice in Israel…”

Cohen sees a parallel with the famous “pizzagate” conspiracy theory, from around 2016, which claimed that Democrats in Hillary Clinton's circle were operating a child sex ring out of a Washington, DC pizzeria that was popular with families. "It just shows how wild fantasy and malevolence can turn one thing into something different that is so, so far from any part of reality."

Iranian-American journalist Yashar Ali tweeted Tuesday night that “the bad behavior of some extremists at Chabad in Crown Heights should have been, at best, a local news topic. Instead, it has become a global anti-Semitic avalanche of some of the most dangerous conspiracy theories about Jews dating back to the Middle Ages. The attempt (which should not have been made and was wrong) to expand a basement has now become 'Jews have tunnels where they are'. [insert blood libel here].' "I'm watching this spread aggressively around the world... not surprising, but still depressing."