A Toms River Township Council meeting on Zoom was abruptly shut down on Wednesday after an unknown speaker interrupted the discussion with antisemitic remarks.

In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Shlomo Schorr, an Agudath Israel official in New Jersey, a voice is heard interrupting the discussion by saying, “We have that problem with the Jews and the tunnels where they suck the babies’ penises.”

A meeting organizer is then heard saying, “You gotta cut the meeting. Cut it, cut it.”

The Toms River township, just south of Lakewood, New Jersey, a Haredi stronghold for decades, has seen its Haredi population increase significantly in recent years, at times sparking tension with some non-Haredi residents, who fear the area being turned into a Haredi enclave.

Toms River mayor Daniel Rodrick called the disruptive comments “disgusting” and said the matter was under investigation, according to the Lakewood Scoop. 

The unknown speaker appeared to reference tunnels recently discovered at the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, where a group of young men attempted an unauthorized expansion of the synagogue and then got into a chaotic confrontation with police, who had arrived to restore order. Photos and videos of the incident spread widely across the internet, and sparked an avalanche of conspiracy theories about those tunnels. Prominent far right conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones suggested the tunnel was built for purposes of child sexual abuse.

The speaker also appeared to be referencing metzitza be’peh, a controversial Haredi practice during circumcision that involves oral suction of the wound, following an ancient Jewish tradition that was originally meant to prevent infection.