4 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_synagogue_tunnel_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_synagogue_tunnel...

dataviz1000 2mo ago
Meanwhile in place of power, cable, and phone lines there is a related 18 mile translucent line hung in order to turn the entire city into one big happy home called a *eruv* -- following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSldb9IMDVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSldb9IMDVU
- woodruffw 2mo ago
  AFAIK the eruvim are not dictated by “high courts” (there is no “high court” at all), but are instead constructed and maintained by various Orthodox groups. Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized. (Also pedantic, but it’s not the entire city: there’s a Manhattan eruv that covers a large part of Manhattan, while Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx have separate smaller eruvim.)
  - randallsquared 2mo ago
    There's a lot one could say about > following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter. but I don't think that "there is no 'high court' at all" is one, for believers.
    - woodruffw 2mo ago
      You can look it up if you don’t believe me. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t have a supreme religious authority; it’s a general classification for ~hundreds of distinct sects and movements. (Each movement has its own beis din, but there is not “high court” that unifies religious rulings across them. Which is why an eruv created by one group is often considered invalid by others.)
      - bombcar 2mo ago
        It's God, he's talking about God.
        ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
        “We’re Kosher, and have to answer to an even higher authority!” https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky
        woodruffw 2mo ago
        That wasn't clear to me :-). But even still: the eruv is a rabbinical interpretation, not something attributed to God.
        bombcar 2mo ago
        The whole joke is that the Jews will even take God to court (where God is the Judge, Jury, and Defendant), and win - I believe there's a whatever it is they have about this: God basically ends up saying "Ha, I like the cut of your jib".
        woodruffw 2mo ago
        You’re probably referring to the Oven of Akhnai: https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/144163?lang=bi https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/144163?lang=bi (Talmudic interpretation doesn’t stress this story because it shows how much Jews love to argue, or because they can win arguments against God. It stresses the story because it demonstrates that the law has been received (“It is not in heaven”) and thus does not need to appeal to God. This, inter alia, is why nobody asks God for their opinion on eruvim.)
  - skissane 2mo ago
    > Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized. There have been some big fights about the topic: https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/ https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/ Although from what I understand, Moshe Feinstein wasn’t opposed to eruvim in principle, he just viewed them as an inappropriate for a city like NYC
- radicality 2mo ago
  I live in nyc, when I first heard of the eruv couldn’t believe they would come up with such elaborate hacks just to ‘technically’ still be following their religious laws! Now if I remember I try and spot it when out. It also has a status page! https://eruv.nyc/ https://eruv.nyc/
  - frantathefranta 2mo ago
    Somebody posted on HN before about an eruv index, that’s how I found my city had one as well[0]. I assume they got sort of popular around Jewish neighborhoods. [0]https://eruv-columbus.com/ https://eruv-columbus.com/
    - radicality 2mo ago
      Next up, they could build a low-earth-orbit eruv and call it a day
  - lesuorac 2mo ago
    Idk it makes sense to me. Like a lot of the rules are very fuzzy in their origin. The whole kosher business comes from a passage about "Not boiling a kid in it's mothers milk". I think most people would interpret that much more literally and you couldn't kill a child goat (kid) and boil it in it's mothers milk; and probably also extend it to other animals like cows. But I'd still think that killing a kid and putting a slice on cheese on the meat would be fine. So if somebody is going to be obtuse with what you can do it seems like it'd be good fun to figure out all the ways around it.
    - to11mtm 2mo ago
      I think most of the kosher rules come from a sort of 'this is the most practical rule we can make at the time to keep people safe' sort of thing. Stuff like disease (i.e. most of the other rules about kosher animal prep including 'inspection',) allergies (shellfish ban), heck even pasteurization (going back to the 'boiling in milk', what are the odds that the milk hit the right temperature all throughout versus only some of it boiling, which in fact could encourage certain bad bacteria to grow, let alone whatever's in the likely uncooked meat being able to feed off the whole thing...)
rdtsc 2mo ago
An illegal tunnel in a densely populated city like that is a bold move. This was unexpected though: > stills taken from videos of the synagogue's interior as well as the room leading to the tunnel, which showed a stained mattress and high chair, respectively, fueled antisemitic conspiracy theories > A USA Today fact-check stated that the stained mattress seen in viral videos had been removed from behind wood paneling of the synagogue rather than from the tunnel itself, undermining online speculation that the mattresses were in the tunnel
- noworriesnate 2mo ago
  Here's a video in which a Rabbi who is a member of the sect clarifies the story: https://xcancel.com/Truthtellerftm/status/1979012642111934881#m https://xcancel.com/Truthtellerftm/status/197901264211193488...
  - burkaman 2mo ago
    This is a clip from a comedy podcast called 9/11 is Gay.
- mschuster91 2mo ago
  > An illegal tunnel in a densely populated city like that is a bold move. I'd say it was an utterly braindead move and pretty much everyone involved is lucky to be alive. There's just so, so much dangerous stuff you can hit below ground - high voltage cables that really, really do not like it if you even nick them, high current cables giving off nasty electromagnetic fields, ordinary low voltage cables whose isolation is already degraded, old water, gas, steam and sewer mains that may or may not burst simply because the only thing holding together the rust is the pressure from the soil, other, maybe long forgotten tunnels... And that's before even getting into the issue of potentially getting caved in, creating a sinkhole or an ingress avenue for stormwater.
cogman10 2mo ago
This is a very weird story. Religious infighting with 2 fundamentalist sects that somehow boiled down to some people digging a tunnel connecting 2 buildings because of... reasons? Like it seems like they thought that if they built the tunnel that'd magically lead to everyone deciding "You know what, this expansion project is a good thing!" Very bizarre. Regardless, I'm glad it got shut down before a collapse killed someone.
- woodruffw 2mo ago
  > Religious infighting with 2 fundamentalist sects that somehow boiled down to some people digging a tunnel connecting 2 buildings because of... reasons? The very short version is that both groups claim ownership of that building, and one of them wants to expand it significantly. Neither group is allowed to modify the building because of a court order, so the one that wants to modify it did it surreptitiously in an attempt to create facts on the ground that would modify the status quo. (Obviously none of this is sensible, but the actual reasons are pretty quotidian.)
masfuerte 2mo ago
It's quite frustrating. The story ends with: > four defendants refused to accept a plea deal and were set to be tried in April 2025 I can find loads of stories reporting those facts, but I can't find an account of what happened next. Did they change their pleas? Were they tried?
- Brybry 2mo ago
  Looks like the cases are still ongoing. You can find the defendant names in this article (from the wikipedia link) [1] and then look up some basic case info by name: google "new york WebCriminal Defendant Search" and then search by defendant name + Kings Supreme Criminal Court. You'll see information like case number and next court date. You can also find similar info with "nyscef case search". When I was clicking around, the website sometimes had language about not linking to it directly without permission so that's why no link... even though it seems a bit silly. [1] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/brooklyn/men-charged-brooklyn-synagogue-tunnel-scuffle-await-april-trial/6107069/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/brooklyn/men-charged-brooklyn-syn...
ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
> Huebner downplayed the seriousness of the charges and said the defendants are all Israelis studying to be rabbis ... Two of the men have dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship and none are married. > The 13 people, all young men, pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn ... Another four defendants were absent because they were in Israel, according to their lawyer, Levi Huebner. > Justice Adam Perlmutter ordered the defendants ... to turn over their passports.
- test12345678 2mo ago
  According to his LinkedIn profile: > Over the past twenty-five years, Judge Perlmutter also has played a central role in the restoration and revitalization of Brooklyn's oldest synagogue building. https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-perlmutter-64799018a https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-perlmutter-64799018a > Prior to ascending to the Supreme Court bench, Perlmutter devoted significant amounts of time to gaining a Torah perspective on legal matters, studying the Talmudic tractate of Sanhedrin and Makos with Brooklyn activist Ari Noe for a year. Perlmutter had his hand placed on an ArtScroll Chumash when he was sworn in to his newest position by New York State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson. https://vinnews.com/2025/02/19/jewish-justice-sworn-in-at-brooklyn-state-supreme-court/ https://vinnews.com/2025/02/19/jewish-justice-sworn-in-at-br...
throw47733 2mo ago
Any mention of NYC underground is an opportunity for the antisemites to come crawling out of the woodwork.

dataviz1000 2mo ago

Meanwhile in place of power, cable, and phone lines there is a related 18 mile translucent line hung in order to turn the entire city into one big happy home called a *eruv* -- following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSldb9IMDVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSldb9IMDVU

woodruffw 2mo ago
AFAIK the eruvim are not dictated by “high courts” (there is no “high court” at all), but are instead constructed and maintained by various Orthodox groups. Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized. (Also pedantic, but it’s not the entire city: there’s a Manhattan eruv that covers a large part of Manhattan, while Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx have separate smaller eruvim.)
- randallsquared 2mo ago
  There's a lot one could say about > following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter. but I don't think that "there is no 'high court' at all" is one, for believers.
  - woodruffw 2mo ago
    You can look it up if you don’t believe me. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t have a supreme religious authority; it’s a general classification for ~hundreds of distinct sects and movements. (Each movement has its own beis din, but there is not “high court” that unifies religious rulings across them. Which is why an eruv created by one group is often considered invalid by others.)
    - bombcar 2mo ago
      It's God, he's talking about God.
      - ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
        “We’re Kosher, and have to answer to an even higher authority!” https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky
      - woodruffw 2mo ago
        That wasn't clear to me :-). But even still: the eruv is a rabbinical interpretation, not something attributed to God.
        bombcar 2mo ago
        The whole joke is that the Jews will even take God to court (where God is the Judge, Jury, and Defendant), and win - I believe there's a whatever it is they have about this: God basically ends up saying "Ha, I like the cut of your jib".
        woodruffw 2mo ago
        You’re probably referring to the Oven of Akhnai: https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/144163?lang=bi https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/144163?lang=bi (Talmudic interpretation doesn’t stress this story because it shows how much Jews love to argue, or because they can win arguments against God. It stresses the story because it demonstrates that the law has been received (“It is not in heaven”) and thus does not need to appeal to God. This, inter alia, is why nobody asks God for their opinion on eruvim.)
- skissane 2mo ago
  > Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized. There have been some big fights about the topic: https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/ https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/ Although from what I understand, Moshe Feinstein wasn’t opposed to eruvim in principle, he just viewed them as an inappropriate for a city like NYC
radicality 2mo ago
I live in nyc, when I first heard of the eruv couldn’t believe they would come up with such elaborate hacks just to ‘technically’ still be following their religious laws! Now if I remember I try and spot it when out. It also has a status page! https://eruv.nyc/ https://eruv.nyc/
- frantathefranta 2mo ago
  Somebody posted on HN before about an eruv index, that’s how I found my city had one as well[0]. I assume they got sort of popular around Jewish neighborhoods. [0]https://eruv-columbus.com/ https://eruv-columbus.com/
  - radicality 2mo ago
    Next up, they could build a low-earth-orbit eruv and call it a day
- lesuorac 2mo ago
  Idk it makes sense to me. Like a lot of the rules are very fuzzy in their origin. The whole kosher business comes from a passage about "Not boiling a kid in it's mothers milk". I think most people would interpret that much more literally and you couldn't kill a child goat (kid) and boil it in it's mothers milk; and probably also extend it to other animals like cows. But I'd still think that killing a kid and putting a slice on cheese on the meat would be fine. So if somebody is going to be obtuse with what you can do it seems like it'd be good fun to figure out all the ways around it.
  - to11mtm 2mo ago
    I think most of the kosher rules come from a sort of 'this is the most practical rule we can make at the time to keep people safe' sort of thing. Stuff like disease (i.e. most of the other rules about kosher animal prep including 'inspection',) allergies (shellfish ban), heck even pasteurization (going back to the 'boiling in milk', what are the odds that the milk hit the right temperature all throughout versus only some of it boiling, which in fact could encourage certain bad bacteria to grow, let alone whatever's in the likely uncooked meat being able to feed off the whole thing...)

rdtsc 2mo ago

An illegal tunnel in a densely populated city like that is a bold move. This was unexpected though: > stills taken from videos of the synagogue's interior as well as the room leading to the tunnel, which showed a stained mattress and high chair, respectively, fueled antisemitic conspiracy theories > A USA Today fact-check stated that the stained mattress seen in viral videos had been removed from behind wood paneling of the synagogue rather than from the tunnel itself, undermining online speculation that the mattresses were in the tunnel

noworriesnate 2mo ago
Here's a video in which a Rabbi who is a member of the sect clarifies the story: https://xcancel.com/Truthtellerftm/status/1979012642111934881#m https://xcancel.com/Truthtellerftm/status/197901264211193488...
- burkaman 2mo ago
  This is a clip from a comedy podcast called 9/11 is Gay.
mschuster91 2mo ago
> An illegal tunnel in a densely populated city like that is a bold move. I'd say it was an utterly braindead move and pretty much everyone involved is lucky to be alive. There's just so, so much dangerous stuff you can hit below ground - high voltage cables that really, really do not like it if you even nick them, high current cables giving off nasty electromagnetic fields, ordinary low voltage cables whose isolation is already degraded, old water, gas, steam and sewer mains that may or may not burst simply because the only thing holding together the rust is the pressure from the soil, other, maybe long forgotten tunnels... And that's before even getting into the issue of potentially getting caved in, creating a sinkhole or an ingress avenue for stormwater.

cogman10 2mo ago

This is a very weird story. Religious infighting with 2 fundamentalist sects that somehow boiled down to some people digging a tunnel connecting 2 buildings because of... reasons? Like it seems like they thought that if they built the tunnel that'd magically lead to everyone deciding "You know what, this expansion project is a good thing!" Very bizarre. Regardless, I'm glad it got shut down before a collapse killed someone.

woodruffw 2mo ago
> Religious infighting with 2 fundamentalist sects that somehow boiled down to some people digging a tunnel connecting 2 buildings because of... reasons? The very short version is that both groups claim ownership of that building, and one of them wants to expand it significantly. Neither group is allowed to modify the building because of a court order, so the one that wants to modify it did it surreptitiously in an attempt to create facts on the ground that would modify the status quo. (Obviously none of this is sensible, but the actual reasons are pretty quotidian.)

masfuerte 2mo ago

It's quite frustrating. The story ends with: > four defendants refused to accept a plea deal and were set to be tried in April 2025 I can find loads of stories reporting those facts, but I can't find an account of what happened next. Did they change their pleas? Were they tried?

Brybry 2mo ago
Looks like the cases are still ongoing. You can find the defendant names in this article (from the wikipedia link) [1] and then look up some basic case info by name: google "new york WebCriminal Defendant Search" and then search by defendant name + Kings Supreme Criminal Court. You'll see information like case number and next court date. You can also find similar info with "nyscef case search". When I was clicking around, the website sometimes had language about not linking to it directly without permission so that's why no link... even though it seems a bit silly. [1] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/brooklyn/men-charged-brooklyn-synagogue-tunnel-scuffle-await-april-trial/6107069/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/brooklyn/men-charged-brooklyn-syn...

ButlerianJihad 2mo ago

> Huebner downplayed the seriousness of the charges and said the defendants are all Israelis studying to be rabbis ... Two of the men have dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship and none are married. > The 13 people, all young men, pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn ... Another four defendants were absent because they were in Israel, according to their lawyer, Levi Huebner. > Justice Adam Perlmutter ordered the defendants ... to turn over their passports.

test12345678 2mo ago
According to his LinkedIn profile: > Over the past twenty-five years, Judge Perlmutter also has played a central role in the restoration and revitalization of Brooklyn's oldest synagogue building. https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-perlmutter-64799018a https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-perlmutter-64799018a > Prior to ascending to the Supreme Court bench, Perlmutter devoted significant amounts of time to gaining a Torah perspective on legal matters, studying the Talmudic tractate of Sanhedrin and Makos with Brooklyn activist Ari Noe for a year. Perlmutter had his hand placed on an ArtScroll Chumash when he was sworn in to his newest position by New York State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson. https://vinnews.com/2025/02/19/jewish-justice-sworn-in-at-brooklyn-state-supreme-court/ https://vinnews.com/2025/02/19/jewish-justice-sworn-in-at-br...

throw47733 2mo ago

Any mention of NYC underground is an opportunity for the antisemites to come crawling out of the woodwork.