13 Hasidic Men Charged in NYC Synagogue’s Tunnel-Gate

Video of a rumpus over an unauthorized tunnel at a Brooklyn synagogue went viral in January. Now, 13 young men, many from Israel, have been hit with criminal charges for the melee at the headquarters of Hasidic Judaism’s Chabad-Lubavitch movement, The New York Times reports. Appearing at an arraignment on Wednesday, the defendants all pleaded not guilty to charges that include obstruction, criminal mischief, and reckless endangerment—and one said he did not understand all the fuss. “The whole story has been blown out of proportion,” Mendel Gerlitzky told the paper. Four more suspects have not been arraigned because they are in Israel. The incident happened in a space next to the sanctuary that had been secretly excavated by those who think the synagogue need to expand. The owners were about to fill the space with cement when the defendants allegedly broke through a wall in a bizarre scene caught on video. A spokesman for Chabad said in a statement that “violence and destruction are anathema to everything the Rebbe taught. We pray that they see the error of their ways.” Prosecutors asked that the 13 be banned from Chabad headquarters but the judge rejected the request.