NEW YORK– Four men accused of damaging a Brooklyn synagogue during a fight that followed the discovery of a secret tunnel at the global headquarters of Hasidic Judaism’s Chabad-Lubavitch movement will stand trial after rejecting a plea deal from prosecutors.
The men are charged with misdemeanor assault for their alleged role in a argument last January that damaged parts of the famous complex, a deeply revered Jewish site that receives thousands of visitors every year.
At the time, dozens of young men had gathered to protest an attempt by synagogue leaders to close off a makeshift tunnel that some congregants had dug without permission in an effort to expand worship space. When police arrived, prosecutors said several men ripped wooden siding from the wall, threw prayer books into the air and refused to leave the dusty dig site.
Sixteen people were arrested after the altercation, which was partially captured on video, drawing widespread attention and curiosity on social media.
At a court conference Monday, six defendants pleaded guilty to lesser charges and agreed to a protective order banning them from making “alterations, excavations or demolitions to the synagogue” for three years. Six others previously pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is a stain on the Chabad movement,” Judge Adam Perlmutter told the men, scolding them for not consulting with synagogue leadership about the expansion plan. “They built buildings all over the world. This involves raising money, hiring architects, obtaining building permits and any repurposing if necessary. It is the only way this can happen in this city.”
Four of the defendants – Yaakov Rothchild, Yisroel Binyamin, Yerachmiel Blumenfeld and Menachem Maidanchik – have rejected the plea deal offered by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. They will be tried April 28 on a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
Jonathan Strauss, a lawyer for Blumenfeld, called the indictment a “scandal” and described his client as a participant in a “civil dispute that has been going on for many, many years.”
“He’s a 20-year-old boy,” Strauss said. “Children do not decide on their own to take the actions he did without being told to do so by much older and wiser people in authority.”
Supporters of the tunnel said they were carrying out the tunnel’s wishes Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersonthe longtime leader of the Chabad movement and one of Judaism’s most influential figures, who spoke of expanding the densely packed religious space before his death in 1994. Some members of the Chabad community believe that Schneerson is still alive and that he is the Messiah.
The messianic vision has long been rejected by Chabad administrators, who characterized the illegal passage as a villainous act of youth vandalism.
“There is no just justification, theological or otherwise, for their lawless and violent behavior,” said Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “We pray that they actually heed the Rebbe’s teachings on the highest ethics and see the grave. their mistakes, and provide moral and religious compensation for the enormous pain and damage they have caused.”
The tunnel was 18.3 meters long and 2.4 meters wide and connected several buildings in the Jewish complex through holes in the basement walls.
Research by the Ministry of Buildings showed that there was an excavation destabilized several nearby buildingsleading to orders being abandoned. The tunnel has now been filled with cement.