Pizza, blood libels and the mystery of NY’s secret Chabad tunnel

Blood libels, baby carriages and pizza

The incident was a gift to both humourists and antisemitic conspiracy theorists.

"The story went viral because it was, objectively, bizarre: A small sect of Hasidic Jews had built an elaborate system of underground tunnels beneath the streets of Brooklyn, for no immediately clear reason. But it also sparked an onslaught of antisemitic conspiracy theories, with some well-known far-right personalities suggesting the tunnels were being used for nefarious trafficking purposes, playing into notorious anti-Jewish tropes, or drawing comparisons to tunnels made by the terrorist group Hamas, referring to them as “Jewish tunnels” or “Zionist tunnels,” observed Rolling Stone.

Some posts were humourous, linking the case to the equally bizzare "pizzagate" allegations during the 2016 US presidential election or creating memes that captured the absurdity of the events.

But many others were filled with hate and conspiracies. There were claims that the tunnel was used for everything from child abuse to helping Israel in Gaza. Claims spread that the tunnel was connected to the mansion of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or to a children's museum. A baby carriage — ubiquitous in the fecund world of Chabad — was used as evidence of child abuse and a dirty mattress seen on video of the tunnels was described as "blood-stained" and used as evidence of human sacrifice.

“They’re all pedophiles. Once they’re caught they go to Israel,” read one response.

“They already control everyone,” read another, accompanied by a picture of Hasidic Jews.

Stories of actual abuse in the Chabad community were dug up as further “proof” for these fabricated claims. Some tweets falsely claimed that the tunnels were connected to “secret Satanic groups and 4,000 ritual human sacrifices are performed in New York City every year”.

Writing in The Forward, Elad Nehorai showed how this isolated and bizzare event was quickly woven in to the standing discourse of white supremacists, antisemites and conspiracy theorists.

"Tunnel conspiracy theories about secret child abuse rings have abounded for decades. Combine that with an ancient blood libel and fabricated claims of ritual abuse, and you have a toxic combination... In a matter of hours, these conspiracy theories were spread to tens of millions of people. White nationalist and neo-Nazi accounts like “Gentile News Network” and the Groyper movement — newly fashioned “pro-Palestinian activists” — spread the images, abuse articles and other conspiracies to their networks.

READ MORE

Twitter explodes with antisemitic misinfo after secret tunnels found under NYC synagogue (Rolling Stone)

Arrests at Chabad’s iconic headquarters after students thwart attempt to fill secret tunnel (Forward)

So why were those yeshiva students digging a tunnel at Chabad headquarters? (Forward)

How Twitter activists turned a viral story about Orthodox Jews into a modern blood libel (Forward)

The ‘tunnel’ controversy at Chabad’s Brooklyn headquarters, explained (JTA)

I thought 2024 would be grim and predictable, then I saw the words ‘secret illegal tunnel under Brooklyn’ (Guardian)