Latest accessory in Crown Heights: A shovel lapel pin to signal support for the 770 tunnel
Podcast digs into what really happened in fracas at Chabad Lubavitch headquarters
A lapel pin shaped like a shovel with a silhouette of Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway signals support for a tunnel that was dug there illegally. Photo by Sam Lin-Sommer
By Beth Harpaz, Sam Lin-SommerMarch 4, 2024
Are lapel pins shaped like shovels the latest accessory in Crown Heights, Brooklyn?
The pin can be purchased for $3 at Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.
Mendy Gerlitzky, a young Lubavitch man, wore the pin to a videotaped interview about an illegally dug tunnel at 770. A near-riot erupted when city officials ordered the tunnel filled in last month.
Gerlitzky had the small gold-colored shovel pin conspicuously attached to the lapel of his black jacket as he spoke on the Trauma Dump with Zach Adler podcast. The episode, titled “Interview with a Secret NYC Jewish ‘Tunnel’ Digger,” was posted on YouTube March 1.
“So he’s wearing a shovel on the lapel,” Adler, the podcast host, said. “I love that you’re wearing this and I want one by the way. Can you get me one?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gerlitzky said. Pointing to details on the pin, he said, “Here it says, ‘Expand 770,’ and there is a little 770 in the shovel,” referring to a silhouette of the building on the pin.
“Oh my God, it’s beautiful,” Adler said. “I think I want to be on Team Expand. So I would like a shovel.”
Someone posting anonymously on the Orthodox Jewish news site collive.com also referred to the item, saying: “I have seen a new lapel pin of a gold shovel. The shovelist’s.”
The melee at 770
Police were called to Chabad headquarters on Jan. 8 after the building’s owners attempted to fill the tunnel in with concrete. The city Buildings Department described the space as a “linear tunnel,” 8 feet wide, 60 feet long and 5 feet high, and issued emergency work orders to stabilize nearby buildings that had been rendered unsafe by the digging near an abandoned mikvah adjacent to 770.
Video of the ensuing fracas showed young Hasidic men throwing furniture and ripping tiles from the wall of a synagogue beneath the organization’s offices. Five people were arrested.
Gerlitzky disputed the use of the term “tunnel,” saying that those using the term to get attention for stories about the incident “owe an apology to all those people, all the hostages, who are sitting in tunnels for the past four months,” referring to hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7. He said instead of calling it a tunnel, it should be called “a failed attempt to expand the shul.”
“Did you pick up a shovel at any point?” Adler asked.
“I’m not going to confirm or deny,” Gerlitzky responded.
“That’s a yes,” Adler said.
What the rebbe wanted
Gerlitzky also said “770 is my life,” and that he goes there daily to pray. He said that Chabad’s Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, had at one point said he wanted the synagogue expanded to accommodate increased numbers of supporters. A few years ago, Gerlitzky said, some of those young Lubavitchers took matters into their own hands and began digging the space out without permission from the Chabad establishment.
Litigation has been ongoing for years between Chabad officials and the group that occupies the synagogue. “They’ve been in court for 20 years over who should be in charge of the shul. The establishment within Chabad wants to take control of the shul because they don’t like the meshichist (messianist) stuff that goes on there,” Gerlitzky said.
“This is a Game of Thrones at 770!” Adler exclaimed, adding that it was a “power struggle” between the “old guard” and “the young guys” who were “going ahead and doing what they thought was right.”
Gerlitzky also said, without evidence, that “99.99%” of Lubavitchers believe the rebbe will return as the messiah. But he said the belief is kept under wraps because Chabad leaders “think it’s going to make Lubavitchers look crazy.”
Officially, the movement maintains an anti-meshichist stance. It does not list meshichistic Chabad outposts on its website’s synagogue lookup tool. Its spokesperson has publicly disavowed activists who post “Messiah Is Here!” posters around New York.
The big reveal
Asked by Adler whether those doing the digging had considered safety issues, Gerlitzky said they had informally consulted contractors who told them, “I’m not going to tell you, dig or don’t dig, but if you’re going to do it, put a beam there.” He said the group’s intention was to “reveal” a finished space at some point with lights, tiles, plumbing, benches, floors and tables.
Adler also asked him about the video footage that showed a soiled mattress and high chair in the excavated space. Those objects helped fuel baseless antisemitic conspiracy theories online that the tunnel was being used for a child-sex ring.
Gerlitzky said mattresses were used to soundproof the digging and that the high chair was being stored there along with other unused items by someone in the community who didn’t need it but hadn’t thrown it away.
“Just this guy keeping his old crap by the abandoned mikvah,” Adler said.
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