Rabbi Manis Friedman: the face of a Jewish genocidaire
Moment Magazine has done us a service by exposing the true face of Jewish terror. And it is a the face of a Chabad rabbi. To the question: “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors,” Rabbi Manis Friedman of the Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies, St. Paul, MN. responds:
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. First, the Arabs will stop using children as shields. Second, they will stop taking hostages knowing that we will not be intimidated. Third, with their holy sites destroyed, they will stop believing that G-d is on their side. Result: no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.
Zero tolerance for stone throwing, for rockets, for kidnapping will mean that the state has achieved sovereignty. Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.
Is it possible that there can be pure evil in Judaism? It grieves me to say that yes, there can be. At least in one sect of Judaism, which harbors and encourages such genocidal impulses and lunatic leaders.
What Rabbi Friedman is talking about is the Biblical injunction to wipe out Amalek, the tribe that betrayed the Children of Israel and attacked them as they left Egypt. The only problem with Friedman’s claim that this is the “Jewish way” is that he has twisted the Biblical record. Wiping out Amalek was not the “Jewish way.” It was actually a command hardly, if ever, issued concerning any other Israelite neighbor. In the Bible, Jews did not routinely wipe out entire tribes merely because they were hostile to Israel.
But leaving all this aside, even as we acknowledge a horrifying genocidal legacy from the Bible, this is an act that happened several thousand years ago. There is absolutely no valid contemporary claim that Jews should engage in similar slaughter against any enemy including the Arabs. The fact that a Chabad rabbi attempts to bamboozle fellow Jews into believing they have not only a right, but a duty to slaughter Arabs today is shameful. This is a rabbi who should be put in herem by the entire Jewish community including his own sect. The fact that he is a respected Chabad rabbi in a major U.S. city speaks volumes about what this movement is: an ardent supporter of the most extreme elements of the settler movement. The next time you read of a settler pogrom on the West Bank, you have spiritual leaders like Friedman and Rabbi Dov Wolpe to thank.
And hey, if you’re a member of Club Kosher, you can join the holy rabbi at the Omni National Golf Resort and Spa in Arizona to hear him lecture on these and other uplifting subjects. And do please send him drishat shalom from me, one of his admirers.
I mean get real, get a load of this guy’s bio:
He has appeared on CNN, A&E Reviews, PBS, and BBC Worldwide, and has been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Seventeen, Guideposts, Insight, Publisher’s Weekly and others.
Rabbi Friedman is a noted Biblical scholar, recognized for his sagacious grasp of Jewish mysticism.
…Rabbi Friedman is a professionally ranked member of the National Speakers Association. His speaking tours take him to every part of this country as well as Israel, England, The Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Canada, and Hong Kong.
I’m not surprised that he’s a hit among Chabad crowds in these places, but what excuse do these major media outlets have in giving this man a bully pulpit from which to spout his hate? And even if he spoke about other theological issues than Jewish-Arab relations, how can you justify putting him on the air to talk about anything after finding out his views about Arabs?
We already have Rabbis for Human Rights. Why not Rabbis for Genocide?
And I do SO enjoy my right wing readers who take me to task when I write posts like this claiming that I’m engaging in lashon hara in excoriating Jewish scum like this. I can’t wait for the first comment to make that claim here. To that person, whoever you may be, perhaps you’ll explain how exposing and condemning a Jewish advocate of genocide is lashon hara.
Buffer
Shoshanna’s comments about Chabad are similar to my experiences.
I have close contact with two chabad rabbis, one in my hometown and one in a nearby college town. They each routinely visit the elderly, the sick, give to poor directly and through agencies without limit or question. Although they pay most attention to the Jewish community, they do initiate service to non-Jews as well.
Generalization is a violation of kind speech, and a violation of bearing false witness against thy neighbor.
Do tell us the long list of good deeds they do for non Jews. I’m waiting.
And please don’t deign to posake on halacha. You’re not a rabbi and look foolish when you try to act like one.
I am a dialoguer. I read. I study.
Don’t attempt to silence me by “you are not a rabbi”. If you disagree with my interpretations, go ahead.
On good deeds to non-Jews, I only know what I see from the individuals that I interact with. I’ve accompanied the local chabad rabbi to nursing homes in our area, in which he was definitely looking for Jewish elders, but stopped at EVERY door that would invite him in, to talk about their lives, their conditions. I’ve been with him when he picked up homeless people hitchiking and bought them food (while most others just ignored the people).
My point it to you Richard. You express a lot of bigotry periodically, in stated opposition to bigotry.
Rather than address the argument, you castigate the people. I prefer the approach of Habad frankly, that individuals can change, are redeemable.
“Tikun Olam” , a “jewish-like” site where authors do not hesitate to calomniate [sic] a genuine, authentic, true great Rabbi as Rabbi Friedman.This clearly demonstrate that you really don’t understand a clue [sic] of what means [sic] “tikun olam”. You may consider renaming your blog as [sic] hatred talks coming from the Nahash…
Richard,
Your broken moral compass can be fixed if you choose to do teshuva, which I daven that you do, but as of now you wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong and between good and bad if you fell over it.
You’ve got the cart before the horse. It is Manis Friedman who should be doing teshuvah for his odious comments about Arabs. Let me know when he agrees to do teshuvah, then we can talk.
You can point a thousand times on any mistakes I can make in writing in English, a foreign language to me.
Your way of doing clearly shows that you try to undermine the other’s position, instead a considering the argument. This again shows a lack of undertanding of what mean “tikun olam”.
You are taking genuine jewish values and making empty marketing slogans from them…. using all that to advance your personal views …
I think Richard should consider the argument, and dash it.
But, he should NEVER generalize, as generalization is a form of collective punishment, a blunt instrument assault on civilians, in the name of opposing assault on innocents.
I add for public record that although my grandmother’s name is Silverstein, I have no family links with you, thanks H”.
I don’t think that Mr. Silverstein is out to vilify Chabad. He doesn’t like the Orthodox in general.
That R. Friedmann has been forced to backpedal on his article has not received comment here so far.
That’s a lie. Just as with any religious group or among any people, there are fine, upstanding human beings and there are louts. I object to the political views of a good proportion of Orthodox Jews who support settlements & the notion that we must not give back an inch of territory because God gave the land to us & not them. Many Orthodox Jews do NOT hold those beliefs. I have no problem with them.
Hi All,
Has any one read Rabbi Friedman’s clarification of his statement, I believe it is available on his web page.
All the best,
I’ve met Mani Friedman on several occasions. He’s a good guy, friendly, and easy going who mainly talks from the point of view of someone who is like a social worker, school principal, on Jewish social issues, education, or dating, and the like. His statement on mid-East politics containing over-the-top rhetorical fireworks for shock-value, but I don’t think, from knowing him, that he intended at all that any Jewish halacha concerning warfare would be abrogated. Therefore his allusion to passages about Amalek were intended for shock value, and not to have the well known rules of war in the Torah suspended, as some seem to be supposing. He certainly is encouraging a get tough approach, but this is nothing new. I was dismayed by his loose language (like a loose canon) because it apparently is causing confusion. That confusion can easily be cleared by studying the Laws of War, from standard Torah sources, and presuming that *this* is what he is talking about. To paraphrase, he probably meant to say “The same Torah that told us all those non-Western methods of war with Amalek, shocking as they sound today, will also instruct us in how to deal with our current war in the Middle-East”
All Reb Mani’s friends want to protect him fr. himself. He knows what the Jewish laws of war are, yet he chose to flout them and interpose his own cruel reinterpretation. I’m afraid I can’t parse what he meant to say or should’ve said. I only know what he DID say.