Riot breaks out in New York City synagogue over secret tunnel

A group of Hasidic Jewish worshippers were arrested amid a dispute over a tunnel secretly dug into the side of a historic Brooklyn synagogue, setting off a brawl between police and those who tried to defend the makeshift passageway.

The discovery of the tunnel at the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights prompted an emergency structural inspection from the city Tuesday.

The building at 770 Eastern Parkway was once home to the movement’s leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and draws thousands of visitors each year. Its Gothic Revival facade is immediately recognizable to adherents of the Chabad movement and replicas of the revered building have been constructed all over the world.