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Riot breaks out after secret tunnel is found underneath Brooklyn Chabad

New York Post
9 Jan 2024

A riot broke out in a historic Brooklyn synagogue when a group of rebellious Orthodox men tried to stop police and construction crews from filling in a secretive tunnel they illegally dug to reach a closed-down women’s bath.

The enraged men, thought to be mostly in their teens and early 20s, were filmed tearing down wood paneling and wooden support beams Monday at the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Crown Heights.

Other footage from the temple on Eastern Parkway showed cops trying to hold back dozens of Hasidic Jewish men as they pushed their way into the 20-foot-wide enclosure underneath the women’s section, toppling over wooden pews in their anger.

Synagogue leader Rabbi Yosef Braun condemned those involved, saying they arrived “ready to destroy and deface the Holy Walls” — calling it “mind-boggling.”

Members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement have reportedly been digging out a tunnel underneath the Crown Heights synagogue for nearly a year.

NEW YORK (AP) — A historic Brooklyn synagogue that serves as the center of an influential Hasidic Jewish movement was trashed this week during an unusual community dispute that began with the discovery of a secret underground tunnel and ended in brawl between worshippers and police.

The conflict erupted in the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, a deeply revered Jewish site that each year receives thousands of visitors, including international students and religious leaders. Its Gothic Revival facade, immediately recognizable to adherents of the Chabad movement, has inspired dozens of replicas across the world.

But on Tuesday, the synagogue remained closed off by police barricades as New York City building safety agents inspected whether a tunnel dug without official permission may have caused structural damage to the famed property.

Officials and locals said young men in the community recently built the passage to the sanctuary in secret. When the group’s leaders tried to seal it off Monday, they staged a protest that turned violent as police moved in to make arrests.

The exact purpose and provenance of the tunnel that incited the altercation remained the subject of some debate.

The passageway is believed to have started in the basement of an empty apartment building behind the headquarters, snaking under a series of offices and lecture halls before eventually connecting to the synagogue, according to Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for Chabad.

He characterized its construction as a rogue act of vandalism committed by a group of misguided young men, condemning the “extremists who broke through the wall to the synagogue, vandalizing the sanctuary, in an effort to preserve their unauthorized access.”

Those who supported the tunnel, meanwhile, said they were carrying out an “expansion” plan long envisioned by the former head of the Chabad movement, Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Schneerson led the Chabad-Lubavitch for more than four decades before his death in 1994, reinvigorating a Hasidic religious community that had been devastated by the Holocaust.

Supporters of the expansion said the basement synagogue had long been overcrowded, prompting a push to annex additional space that some in the community felt was taking too long. Many of those supporters subscribe to the messianic belief that Schneerson is still alive.

“That’s what the rabbi wants, that’s what everybody wants,” said Zalmy Grossman, a 21-year-old Brooklyn resident. He said the tunnel project began late last year as a way to connect the synagogue with “the whole empty space” behind it.

Chabad leaders declined to say when they discovered the underground connection. But several worshippers said word of the tunnel’s existence had spread through the community in recent weeks.

The situation came to a head Monday, when a cement truck arrived to seal the opening. Proponents of the tunnel then staged a protest and ripped off the wooden siding of the synagogue.

A police department spokesperson said officers were called to the building in the afternoon to respond to a disorderly group that was trespassing and damaging a wall.

For several hours, police pleaded with the young men to leave the entrance to the tunnel, according to witnesses. After they refused, the officers covered the area with a white curtain and entered the dusty crevasse with zip ties to detain the protesters.

“When they took the first person out with zip ties, that’s when the outburst happened,” said Baruch Dahan, a 21-year-old studying at the synagogue who videotaped the congregants fighting. “Almost everyone was against what they did, but as soon as people saw the handcuffs there was confusion and pushing.”

Footage posted to social media shows scores of onlookers, mostly young men, jeering at the NYPD’s community affairs officers. Some lifted wooden desks into the air, sending prayer books scattering. In response, an officer appeared to deploy an irritating spray to disperse the group.

Nine people — between the ages of 19 and 22 — were ultimately arrested on charges that included criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and obstructing governmental administration, according to police. Another three received summonses for disorderly conduct.

A spokesperson for the Department of Buildings said the inspection results were pending on Tuesday evening.

While the building remained closed, some worshippers completed their prayers outside in the drizzling rain.

“The community feels terrible,” Dahan said. “It’s a disgrace, instead of expanding, they destroyed.”

Alabama priest who married 18-year-old ousted from priesthood
Decision by archbishop on Alex Crow in sharp contrast to decision on different priest who sexually molested multiple boys

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Wed 10 Jan 2024 11.00 CET

The Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who married a recent high school graduate after meeting her through his ministry, fleeing to Europe with her and facing law enforcement scrutiny, has been permanently ousted from the priesthood, a consequence few clergymen ever endure.

Alex Crow’s removal as a priest – known as laicization – by the Vatican had taken effect by 5 January and was confirmed in a letter from the Catholic church’s worldwide leader, Pope Francis, according to an announcement from the archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.

Mobile’s archbishop, Thomas Rodi, condemned Crow in the announcement for – as he put it – behaving scandalously, and expressed a desire for his local community to “move toward peace after these unsettling events”.

Among other things, the entire saga involving Crow, the young woman and Rodi illustrated how Catholic bureaucrats invoke the possibility of laicization for cases of clerical misconduct on an individual basis.

Rodi was a high-ranking official in nearby New Orleans in 2000 when that city’s archdiocese included him on a letter reinstating a priest who had gone on sabbatical after having admitted to sexually molesting or harassing multiple underage boys whom he met while on duty.

That now-retired priest, Lawrence Hecker, was indicted on charges of child rape, kidnapping and other crimes after being the subject of a Guardian investigation last year. As has been the case with other charged or convicted clerical child rapists, Hecker has never faced expulsion from the priesthood, and there is no indication the church has ever put pressure on him to seek laicization on his own.

One other south-eastern US priest whose laicization was sought by Catholic officials was Travis Clark, who pleaded guilty in November 2022 to a criminal charge of obscenity after a passerby reported him for filming a consensual sexual encounter with two professional dominatrices atop the altar of his Pearl River, Louisiana, church.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... lic-church

Alabama priest ‘groomed young girls’ before fleeing to Italy with 18-year-old
Alex Crow was previously accused of acting inappropriately with students and remains under orders by archdiocese to return home

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Fri 18 Aug 2023 20.30 CEST

A Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who fled to Europe with a recent high school graduate whom he met through his work has drawn scrutiny from law enforcement and been told to stop presenting himself in public as a cleric.

Alex Crow, an expert in the theological study of demons and exorcism, is suspected of having “groomed [multiple] young girls” before going to Italy with an 18-year-old, according to an interview that local sheriff Paul Burch recently gave to Fox Nation’s Nancy Grace. The teen’s family has been trying to convince her to return home.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... italy-teen

Acyn @Acyn wrote: Carson: You think about the bible. King David. Most people , if they were alive back in those days would have said what a horrible guy.

Cavuto: You’re comparing him to King David?

Carson: I— I—

The three-decade saga that led to the Crown Heights tunnels
How a group of anti-establishment yeshiva students from the Israeli city of Tzfat took control of the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn and started digging

Chananya Groner
Tue 16 Jan 2024 15.20 CET

Last week, after underground tunnels were discovered near the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood and attempts by synagogue officials to perform repairs were prevented by a group of yeshiva students, a mini-riot broke out after police showed up to restore order. A group of rowdy yeshiva students was seen smashing down a wall at the most cherished site of the Chabad movement.

The incident in New York made headlines and primetime TV news from Reykjavík to Mumbai and beyond. Antisemitic conspiracy theories on the internet went into overdrive, alleging the tunnels were used for everything from child sexual abuse to secret animal sacrifices. Even well-meaning observers wondered: what in God’s name was going on there?

The real story emerged in bits and pieces. The incident involved an unauthorized and haphazard attempt by a group of students to expand the main Chabad synagogue, commonly referred to as “770”, for its address at 770 Eastern Parkway. The tunnels were access points to an area the students had been excavating.

In subsequent statements, synagogue officials referred to the students as “young agitators” and “extremists”. Several well-placed sources within the Crown Heights Chabad community, however, have identified the tunnel-diggers as having a more distinct identity: the “Tzfatim” .

The Tzfatim, who have a long reputation for creating disturbances, are, in the parlance of Chabad factionalism, “extreme Meshichists”. Meshichists – or Messianists – are Chabad Hasidim who believe that their late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the Messiah, and despite his death in 1994, is still meant to reappear.

“Tzfatim” (literally, those of Tzfat – the city of Safed, in Israel – where many of the students had attended yeshiva previously, and then came to spend a period of study in Crown Heights) are perceived to be, even by Meshichist standards, unusually fervent in their beliefs and have been involved in numerous incidents of violence and mayhem for nearly three decades.

The underground excavations, it now appears, are the latest in a long string of incidents of anarchy and lawlessness by this group.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... e-brooklyn

Couple are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as ‘INDXcoin’, to Christian community in Denver, Colorado

A Colorado pastor who is charged with stealing more than $1m from his Christian community in a cryptocurrency scheme has admitted to the fraud but argued that God instructed him to carry it out.

Eli Regalado and his wife, Kaitlyn, are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as “INDXcoin”, to Christians based in their home town of Denver, Colorado, allegedly telling would-be investors that the Lord had told him people would become rich if they invested, the state’s division of securities announced in a press release on Thursday.

But INDXcoin was “practically worthless” in reality, prosecutors said in the statement. Investors lost millions of dollars while the Regalados used their investments for lavish living.

In a video statement about the charges, Eli admitted that the couple had squandered $1.3m that was raised through cryptocurrency.

“The charges are that me and Kaitlyn pocketed $1.3m,” Regalado said in the video published to INDXcoin’s website on Friday. “I just wanted to come out and say those charges are true.”

Regalado added: “A few hundred thousand dollars went to a home remodel the Lord told us to do.

“We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit.”

Regalado added that the couple still believes that God will “work a miracle in the financial sector”.

[...]

bbflatt wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:17 am God clearly wants them incarcerated.

p0rtia wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:03 pm Birth
Have Drinks
Marriage
Have Drinks
Refit
Have Drinks
Death
Have Drinks

northland10 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 6:59 pm

p0rtia wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:03 pm Birth
Have Drinks
Marriage
Have Drinks
Refit
Have Drinks
Death
Have Drinks

Updated for Episcopalians.

johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 4:30 pm Apparently, scamming your parishioners for kitchen remodels is now a sacrament.

much ado wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 12:10 am Gimmee that old time religion...

The Guardian: ‘The Lord told us to’: US pastor says he stole $1m from Christians to remodel home

Couple are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as ‘INDXcoin’, to Christian community in Denver, Colorado

A Colorado pastor who is charged with stealing more than $1m from his Christian community in a cryptocurrency scheme has admitted to the fraud but argued that God instructed him to carry it out.

Eli Regalado and his wife, Kaitlyn, are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as “INDXcoin”, to Christians based in their home town of Denver, Colorado, allegedly telling would-be investors that the Lord had told him people would become rich if they invested, the state’s division of securities announced in a press release on Thursday.

But INDXcoin was “practically worthless” in reality, prosecutors said in the statement. Investors lost millions of dollars while the Regalados used their investments for lavish living.

In a video statement about the charges, Eli admitted that the couple had squandered $1.3m that was raised through cryptocurrency.

“The charges are that me and Kaitlyn pocketed $1.3m,” Regalado said in the video published to INDXcoin’s website on Friday. “I just wanted to come out and say those charges are true.”

Regalado added: “A few hundred thousand dollars went to a home remodel the Lord told us to do. * * *

I wonder if they will claim immunity from prosecution on the grounds that they were just carrying out God's will?

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 7:03 pm

northland10 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 6:59 pm

p0rtia wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:03 pm Birth
Have Drinks
Marriage
Have Drinks
Refit
Have Drinks
Death
Have Drinks

Updated for Episcopalians.

And Catholics.