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- Thirteen men, all aged between 18 and 21, were indicted on Wednesday for their roles in a January incident connected to an illegally dug tunnel underneath an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn. Daily Mail (LR: 5 CP: 5)
- The defendants, a group of Hasidic Jews, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including criminal mischief and obstructing governmental administration. Some of the defendants are currently in Israel. Israel National News
- A judge did order the accused to turn over their passports. However, the prosecution's request to bar the men from the synagogue was denied. New York Post (LR: 5 CP: 5)
- In January, after the owners of a building adjacent to the synagogue attempted to fill in the secretly excavated tunnel, some of the defendants broke through the wall separating the dug-out area from the synagogue. New York Times (LR: 2 CP: 5)
- An investigation by the Department of Buildings found that the underground passage connecting four buildings within the religious complex, which has since been filled with concrete, compromised the stability of several nearby buildings. ABC News
Narrative A:
- The tunnels dug under 770 and the subsequent damage caused by the attempt to connect them to the main synagogue building were rogue acts of vandalism committed by an overzealous group of youngsters. These were undoubtedly criminal actions, but they in no way represent the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
THE DAILY BEAST
Narrative B:
- This whole situation has been blown massively out of proportion. The students behind this simply wanted to fulfill what they believed were the Rebbe's wishes — they were misinterpreting the fact that most of the community would likely favor an expansion of the synagogue. These young men are naive, but they are far from criminals.
NEW YORK TIMES (LR: 2 CP: 5)
Nerd narrative:
- There's a 50% chance that at least 114K US Jews will move to Israel by 2050, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
METACULUS (LR: 3 CP: 3)