Chabad rabbi: ‘Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)’
The current issue of Moment magazine dedicates its "Ask the Rabbis" section to the question "How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?"
Rabbis from various denominations offered responses, but it's the final one -- from a Chabad rabbi, Manis Friedman of the St. Paul-based Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies -- that is likely to spark the most reaction:
I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).
The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East. ...
Click here to read Friedman's full answer, as well as the other responses.
The editor of New Voices says... We told you so:
When we published Jeremy’s piece on Lubavitch rabbis on the radical fringe of the settler movement, we were accused of exaggerating their importance. We were told that they were marginal figures, outside of the influence of Lubavitch HQ in Crown Heights, and that few American Lubavitchers shared their extremism. Rabbi Friedman’s wacky-if-it-weren’t-scary comment in Moment should defuse some of that criticism. Friedman seems to be a fully integrated into the mainstream American Chabad movement. He was the Rebbe’s translator until 1990, he has almost 200 articles and videos up at chabad.org, the movement’s official propaganda arm, and his Minnesota women’s yeshiva is listed in the official online directory of Chabad outposts. His website is fancy and looks well-funded.
When I come across this sort of thing, I wonder at Chabad’s popularity among secular Jewish students. These aren’t just bad politics, they’re insane politics. At what point does the Chabad rabbi tell the prospective Ba’al Teshuva that he thinks that Israel should “destroy their holy sites”? Probably not at the first Shabbat dinner, right? Maybe after two Shabbat dinners, a “lunch and learn,” and a Birthright trip through Mayanot? ...
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after reading this article about this “holy man” I am more then ever sure
of my position as a secular jew .
I come from a family of ardent zionists but not violent fanatics.
I must agree with the comments noted thus far and pointing out that Rabbi Friedman represents a very dangerous “extremeist Right” point of view, if he even represents that. His comments, when spread boadly, do far more harm than good to all parties involved--Religious Jews, secular Zionists, Arab Israeli’s, Palestinians His comments do more to incite anti-Jewish sentiment than much present or past persecution of Jews accomplishes!
Dr. Jacques Anthony Pluss.
1. It is not clear whether Friedman wrote this or it is a forgery.
2. The idea that Israelis in the Middle East, where there is no effective police power in the PA willing and able to protect Jewish holy sites, should behave like Americans when the Palestinians destroy Jewish Holy Sites is a bad one. There should be no immunity for Palestinian holy sites in such cases, especially since they are often used as terrorist bases and recruiting depots.. But the Palestinians are very good at creating Western outrage when the Israelis do to them a tiny fraction of what they have done to the Israelis.
3. As for draconian responses, the language of the Middle East, and behavior of the Arabs towards each other is to retaliate for killing their women and children by killing the women and children of the other. Anything else is seen as weakness and encourages even further violence, as we have seen. The Israelis are not “us”, and to hold them to Western standards of behavior when they live in an anarchistic sea of terrorist murderers is proving ("Christian" morality aside) simply unworkable. The New Testament is not a suicide pact Friedman (if it is not a forgery) is suggesting that the Israelis adopt the local policy with respect to foreign terror. There is no suggestion it be applied to Arab citizens of Israel, who are biblically protected. Simply to announce publicly that when Palestinians kill Israeli civilians (Jewish AND Arab), their own civilians are no longer immunized might compel caution (or even have it forced by the Palestinian body politic). It’s all a matter of “Political Will” on the part of the Palestinians--doing something unpleasant because the alternative is much worse.
Western compromise, even to the point of unilaterally pulling out of Gaza, has been seen not to work.
I guess this is a blog so the professional standards of the JTA are not required. But what about honesty for the sake of honesty? Please post the rabbi’s entire statement, so readers can see the context. And ask Moment for his original article, not their chopped up version. Clearly the rabbi is not talking about wanton killing and destruction, but on how to wage a war.
I do not believe in the dogma of organized religion, but neither do I believe in the dogma of the religion of liberalism. The arrogance of this blog’s author and the other dismissive comments here are typical of liberal fundamentalists. Liberals accuse religious people of being irrational, but liberals suffer from the same illness.
As a man free of religion, including liberalism, I see the situation in the Middle East without the bias of the old or new testament, and without the bias of liberal dreams. As religious fanatics are sure of their doctrines, liberals are sure that their path will lead to peace. Like Obama, convinced that he will just smile at the Muslim world and they will “unclench their fists.” Since Obama took the crown we have seen an increase in the chutzpah of Iran and North Korea.
Does that change liberal views on appeasement? No. Because their views are not based on fact but on faith. “Appeasement leads to peace.” Repeat. Close your eyes and repeat. “War is not the answer.” Repeat.
The liberal faith asserts that we mustn’t bomb a holy site, even if terrorists are holed up there; we mustn’t bomb during ramadan, even though the enemy uses the lull to rearm; we mustn’t bomb near civilians, even though the enemy uses civilians as shields. These fiats are no less logical than the superstitions of the ancients.
Yet ironically, the liberal faith leads to more death, since the Hitlers, and Arafat’s, and Khomeini’s are emboldened by the turn the other cheek dogma of the liberal (which they borrowed from the fundamentalists).
I probably don’t agree with much else with the rabbi, and I hope he won’t ask me to lay tefilin if i ever meet him, but i admire his guts in risking his career by stating the truth. The other rabbis either suffer from the liberal malady themselves, or worse: they put the safety of their brethren in Israel second to their desire to be loved by the fools.
I have known R. Friedman personally for over 25 years. I have been involved with Chabad also for over 25 years. I have never heard anyone speak this way towards Arabs. I am sure R. Friedman is biting his lip about now. Having said that, I personally (and I am not an Ultra Orthodox anything) think we are fooling ourselves if we do not think that we will one day have to destroy the Islamic Fascists like we did Hitler. They are pure evil. And have hijacked almost all of Islam. Wake up!!
Think.
Our enemies know how to weaken a country. They have no qualms with bringing our nation to its knees. Is this not what we need to do to our enemies? Or do you believe that the more you die the more honorable you are?
The only way to end this situation is to bring the Arab extremists down – extremely!! Does that sound extreme? They need to be absolutely silenced!!
If you are thinking that the rabbi is promoting pogroms against the Arab nations you must read his words again, fully! When Israel won a war in six days there should have been no more fighting. But we were liberal idiots who immediately showed “mercy” to the suffering enemy. To the Arab that is a sign of weakness.
Do you drip your own blood into a pool of sharks? Do you want to attract the attention of the blood thirsty crazies? Of course not! You need to stand tall as if you’re facing a polar bear. Scream, yell, ring your bells as loudly as you can. Let the big bear know that you mean business.
That’s what the rabbi is saying. When fighting a war (which is not something that might happen soon - it is the present reality) you can’t afford to reveal any weak spots. You need to make a very clear statement that absolutely nothing can shield your enemy from your reach. There can be no safe base for the enemy to retreat to.
Being this unequivocal leaves the enemy with only two options. 1. Stop the attacks 2. Die. And there is no question at all that the second option is a necessary evil. Very evil – very, very necessary.
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Rabbi Arie Chark
06/01/09 12:45 PM
I have two perspective I want to share on this matter.
1. Only someone who has never lifted a gun and shot at other people could for a moment think that such a policy would work. I have done both and have permanently damaged ankles from the bullets I have taken in return.
Manis’s remarks are absurd and didn’t work even in Biblical times. When Sha’ul Ha’Melekh “King Saul” was mandated to do kill every living thing he oversaw a general slaughter but permitted booty, which was a humanitarian gesture for ancient warfare. The Prophet Shmuel was extremely upset and prophesied the downfall of the House of Sha’ul, which occurred.
2. While I would say that Manis is widely representative of Lubavitchers, I would *not* say that he represents the Lubavitcher mainstream because there is no Lubavitcher mainstream. Since the Rebbe died there has been less and less cohesion among Lubavitcher shlukhim (local Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis who typically run “Chabad Houses").
I am close to many who believe that any day now the Rebbe will arsie from his qever “grave” and lead us into the Coming World. I am close to others who reject that as nonsense.
I know some of the deep mystics of the Chabad system, of whom here are fewer and fewer, and I know others for whom mystical approaches are something to pay lip-service, which is typical.
Mr Arnold is under no obligation to believe in G!d. He is under an obligation to be civil. Capital letters are not civil and his shrill perspectives are irritating without being informative.