NEW YORK - A prominent Chabad rabbi is seeking to clarify remarks in which he renounced "Western morality" and seemed to call on Israel to massacre Palestinian civilians.
"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way," wrote Rabbi Manis Friedman in the current issue of Moment magazine. "Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children."
Friedman's comments were a response to the question "How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?" The question was posed to rabbis of several denominations.
Subsequently he said that the comments were solely his own and not those of any movement or organization. A Chabad spokesperson also emphasized that Friedman was not speaking for the organization.
Friedman, of St. Paul, Minn., also said that his published comments were "misleading" and were meant to address not how Jews should treat their neighbors but how they should act in a time of war.
"I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed," Friedman wrote in a clarification issued through a Chabad spokesperson.
In response, Moment editor Nadine Epstein said nothing was taken out of Friedman's comments save for some quotation marks and a short paragraph that did not alter the meaning of the controversial passage. She also said that Friedman was asked the same question as all the other rabbis and that he was invited to elaborate further on the magazine's blog.
"The question did not include a reference to 'during a time of war,'" Epstein said.
