Who was the revered rabbi whose New York synagogue was the scene of a brawl over an illegal tunnel?

The basement synagogue that was the scene of a brawl between worshipers and New York City police this week has a long and storied connection to a Brooklyn rabbi who led a global movement and remains revered 30 years after his death.

The fighting erupted Monday when authorities tried to seal off a secret tunnel to the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue, where some worshipers — described by the movement as “a small group of rogue youths” — were intended to fulfill Rabbi Menachem’s wishes. to fulfill. Mendel Schneerson.

Here are some details about Schneerson and his impact within and outside the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Orthodox Judaism.

Schneerson led Chabad-Lubavitch from 1951 until his death in 1994. He was the movement’s seventh leader, known as Lubavitcher Rebbe.

He arrived in the United States during World War II after receiving a secular education in Europe, and quickly began rebuilding Chabad-Lubavitch and broader Jewish observance after the devastation of the Holocaust.

Schneerson’s voluminous speeches and writings were widely distributed and continue to be collected and studied by followers.

He attempted to expand Jewish observance by sending emissaries around the world, often to places with little to no Jewish presence. And he would encourage people of all faiths to be more observant and heed the universal moral teachings about honoring God and respecting others.

On Sunday, Schneerson handed out crisp dollar bills to people who waited in line for hours to see him. The bills were supposed to be given to charity, but many kept them as souvenirs, according to his 1994 obituary from The Associated Press. Many who met him in person came away with stories of his charisma and his encyclopedic memory for names and details.

“Reverence for the Rebbe in that sense is standard” in every Hasidic community, says Ezra Glinter, who is writing a biography of Schneerson for Yale University Press. ‘But he did have a broader influence than most Hasidic rebbes. These kinds of stories really crossed the boundaries of his own community.”

Even before his death, some followers viewed Schneerson as a messianic figure, and some now believe that he did not actually die or that he will be resurrected to complete his work.

The Chabad movement rejects any teaching that Schneerson is the Messiah. Still, his memory is honored throughout the movement and beyond, and his grave in Queens receives about 400,000 visitors a year, according to Chabad.

No one has succeeded Schneerson as rebbe in the thirty years since his death, but the movement continues to expand and has become the most outward-looking Hasidic or strictly observant Orthodox Jewish group.

The movement’s global headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is a deeply revered Jewish site visited by thousands of people every year, including international students and religious leaders. The neo-Gothic facade has inspired dozens of replicas around the world.

The movement continues to send representatives to college campuses, public squares and other locations to encourage less devout Jews to become more observant. The major Hanukkah celebrations have become an annual tradition in the United States and elsewhere, complete with giant menorahs paraded on car roofs and displayed in other public spaces.

Male and female emissaries, known as shluchim, work around the world, providing a Jewish presence even where it is otherwise sparse. Their enormous group photos have become a tradition at annual gatherings in New York.

Officials and local residents said some young members of the movement had secretly dug a 20-meter-long tunnel to the basement synagogue. When the group’s leaders tried to shut things down Monday, the men staged a protest that turned violent when police moved in to make arrests.

Within days, New York building officials issued emergency work orders to stabilize the synagogue and adjacent buildings, fearing that the illegal underground tunnel could have caused structural damage. The authorities have ordered the evacuation of a number of buildings for safety reasons and have issued reports to the building owners.

Tunnel supporters said they believe Schneerson is the Messiah, that he is still alive and that he supports an expansion of the synagogue.

For Schneerson, the Brooklyn complex had “a lot of symbolic and religious significance,” as the place where he and his predecessor had taught and worked, Glinter said. The Rebbe had goals for an expansion in the 1980s and 1990s and saw this as a “further preparatory act for the coming of the Messiah,” Glinter said.

That expansion did not materialize, he said. “It seems very likely to me that the people who did this believed that they were in fact fulfilling Schneerson’s wishes.”

Chabad spokesman Rabbi Motti Seligson described those involved in the tunnel digging and subsequent disorder as “young agitators,” but conceded that everyone supports an expansion at some point. “This is a small group of rogue youth who have unfortunately caused a tremendous amount of pain and damage,” he said.

“This is a place where the Rebbe taught and inspired a generation to be kinder, to be better, to become the best version of themselves,” Seligson said. “For this to happen in this sacred space is incredibly painful.”

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Associated Press religion reporting is supported by the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.