Bob Dylan’s Chabad Rabbi calls for mass murder of women and children

Chabad rabbi: Jews should kill Arab men, women and children during war 

Nathaniel Popper, The Forward
 

"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)," [said Chabad Rabbi]  Friedman. Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was "radical.  I love him...he's magnificent. He's brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes."

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.

But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.

"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)," Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its  "Ask the Rabbis" feature...

"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 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."

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League said..."I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad."

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. ..

Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement...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.

...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. They just don't say it in public."

Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was "radical.  I love him...he's magnificent. He's brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes."

Read entire article from Haaretz, Thursday 11th June, 2009