RABBI MANIS FRIEDMAN: JEWS SHOULD KILL ARAB MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN DURING WAR!
09. Jun, 2009
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By Nathaniel Popper, The Forward
Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.
“I don’t believe in Western morality,” he wrote. “Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.”
Friedman’s use of phrasing that might seem more familiar coming from an Islamic extremist has generated a swift backlash. The editor of Moment, Nadine Epstein, said that since the piece was printed in the current issue they “have received many letters and e-mails in response to Rabbi Friedman’s comments – and almost none of them have been positive.”
Friedman quickly went into damage control. He released a statement to the Forward, through a Chabad spokesman, saying that his answer in Moment was “misleading” and that he does believe that “any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion.”
But Friedman’s words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman’s hometown, St. Paul. Minnesota, said: “The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here.”
“He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less,” said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World.
“They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, “We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views.”
But, Foxman warned, Friedman’s views are not reflective of the Chabad rabbis he knows. “I am not shocked that there would be a rabbi who would have these views,” Foxman said, “but I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad.”
A few days after anger about the comment surfaced, Chabad headquarters released a statement saying that, “we vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war.”
The statement added: “In keeping with Jewish law, it is the unequivocal position of Chabad-Lubavitch that all human life is G-d given, precious, and must be treated with respect, dignity and compassion.”
In Moment, Friedman’s comment is listed as the Chabad response to the question “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” after a number of answers from rabbis representing other Jewish streams, most of which state a conciliatory attitude toward Arabs.
Epstein said that Friedman was “brave” for stating his views so clearly.
“The American Jewish community doesn’t have the chance to hear opinions like this,” Epstein said, “not because they are rare, but because we don’t often ask Chabad and other similar groups what they think.”
The Chabad movement is generally known for its hawkish policies toward the Palestinians; the Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, rejected peace accords with the Palestinians. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the top Chabad rabbi in Minnesota, said that the rebbe taught that it is not a mitzvah to kill, but that Jews do have an obligation to act in self-defense.
“Jews as a whole, they try to save the lives of others,” Feller told the Forward, “but if it’s to save our lives, then we have to do what we have to do. It’s a last resort.”
Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was the English translator for the Chabad Rebbe, and at the rebbe’s urging, he founded Beis Chana, a network of camps and schools for Jewish women. Friedman is also a popular speaker and writer on issues of love and relationships. His first book, “Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?” was promoted with a quote from Bob Dylan, who Friedman brought to meet the rebbe.
On his blog and Facebook page, Friedman’s emphasis is on his sympathetic, caring side. It was this reputation that made the comment in Moment so surprising to Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council: Minnesota and the Dakotas.
“Rabbi Friedman is a best-selling author who addresses some of the most sensitive issues of the time,” Hunegs said. “I intend to call him and talk to him about this.”
But Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger and critic of Chabad who lives a few blocks from Friedman in Minnesota, says that the comment in Moment is not an aberration from his experiences with Friedman and many other Chabad rabbis.
“What he’s saying is the standard normal view of a Chabadnik,” Rosenberg said. “They just don’t say it in public.”
For his part, Friedman was quick to modify the statement that he wrote in Moment. He told the Forward that the line about killing women and children should have been in quotes; he said it is a line from the Torah, though he declined to specify from which part. Friedman also said that he was not advocating for Israel to actually kill women and children. Instead, he said, he believed that Israel should publicly say that it is willing to do these things in order to scare Palestinians and prevent war.
“If we took this policy, no one would be killed – because there would be no war,” Friedman said. “The same is true of the United States.”
Friedman did acknowledge, however, that in self-defense, the behavior he talked about would be permissible.
“If your children are threatened, you do whatever it takes – and you don’t have to apologize,” he said.
Friedman argued that he is different from Arab terrorists who have used similar language about killing Jewish civilians.
“When they say it, it’s genocide, not self-defense,” Friedman said. “With them, it’s a religious belief – they need to rid the area of us. We’re not saying that.”
Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was “radical.”
“I love him,” Feller said. “I brought him out here – he’s magnificent. He’s brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes.”
Contact Nathaniel Popper at: popper@forward.com
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I can only imagine the condemnation and vilification which ADL, Israeli Agencies, and World Jewry would pour down on the head of unfortunate anti-Semite who suggested that “The only way to fight Israel in a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)….”
In many Nations he would be persecuted, prosecuted and put in prison for such a suggestion.
Rabbi Friedman? He is Jewish, so “normal” laws, morals, ethics and standards of humanity do not apply to him and and he is praised!
Oh vey?
Earlaiman
[Reply]
the Jewish Temple was in Jerusalem 800 years before Mohammeed was born….. … Rabbi Friedman is right just follow the Torah… this could be your last chance… get ready “Mosiach” is comming…B’H’
[Reply]
Please, please, please stop spreading the hatred.
the rabbi already explained that he was misquoted and that he was calling for the Israelis to intimidate the extremists so that they sould stop using women and children as shields.
Why do some people need to keep the hatred going even once we know it was a missunderstanding?!?!?!?!?
[Reply]
I have found it pointless and frustrating to engage with Jews, particularly Zionist fanatics, on issues such as this because they do not use language the same way as we do, facts are irrelevant and they can just as easily deny saying something with the same confidence and sincerity with which they originally said it.
But, Rabbi Manis Friedmann acolytes who have dashed to his defense, encouraging attackers to “drop the issue because “you are only inspiring more hatred.” (throwing the ball of guilt and blame for it all on us) are trying to persuade the fire-fighters who have rushed to the blaze that there is in fact no fire here. Which is pure bullshit! The Rabbi said it in good faith. He meant is as gospel! He cannot recall his words!
Who was it just yesterday who, in regard to something which Nutzandyahoo has said, said: “words once set lose, unlike a dog, cannot be recalled.”
In evidence to support the argument that he knew what he was saying, and it reflects the Zionist policies of Eretz Israel, in spite of what he may have subsequently said to cover his tracks, I submit the attached evidence.
This guy unwisely let his mouth dig a hole into which he has fallen, at the wrong time… and for his defenders
to pretend that there is no hole is absurd.
Hell, they need us, for we are the ones who create the victimhood in which they glory! Without loose mouthed guys like the Good Rabbi to keep the fires burning, they would not be disliked so much, and would lose their identity as martyrs in the cause of God.
Debbie
[Reply]
The Attachment as stated above:
The Founding Fathers1
David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 – 1954,
1955 – 1963
“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
– David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
“There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
– Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”
–David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
– David Ben-Gurion 1938 (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
Your browser may not support display of this image.Golda Meir
Prime Minister of Israel
1969 – 1974
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
– Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
– Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.
“Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.”
– Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961
“This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
–Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971
Your browser may not support display of this image.Yitzhak Rabin
Prime Minister of Israel
1974 – 1977,
1992 – 1995
“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!”
– Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
“[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat.”
–Yitzhak Rabin (a “Prince of Peace” by Clinton’s standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen’s remarks to the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
Your browser may not support display of this image.Menachem Begin
Prime Minister of Israel
1977 – 1983
“[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘Beasts,”‘ New Statesman, June 25, 1982.
“The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized …. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever.”
–Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
Your browser may not support display of this image.
Yizhak Shamir
Prime Minister of Israel
1983 – 1984,
1986 – 1992
“The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country.”
– Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.
“The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It’s that simple.”
– Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997.
“(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.”
– Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
Your browser may not support display of this image.Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
1996 – 1999
“Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.”
–Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
Your browser may not support display of this image.Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
1999 – 2001
“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”….
– Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
“If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force….”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.
“I would have joined a terrorist organization.”
– Ehud Barak’s response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha’aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.
Your browser may not support display of this image.Ariel Sharon
Prime Minister of Israel
2001 – 2006
“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours…Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
Sources:
Video : http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk
Quotes: monabaker.com
[Reply]
Wow what a disgusting Rabbi he is! Not only want the the Arabs dead but of all gentiles in the world. Who in the hell does he think he is?
[Reply]