Rabbi Shlomo Riskin has apologized for remarks he made last week suggesting that American Jews should stop contributing to the United Jewish Appeal and other agencies connected to the government of Israel.
“I don’t believe that we shouldn’t give to UJA,” he said in a telephone interview from the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Tuesday.
“If it came out that way, then I’m sorry,” he said, referring to comments he made at a news conference in New York.
Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, had flown here last week in the wake of a heated controversy over plans to expand his community.
Efrat’s plans were thwarted when the Israeli government decided to halt the expansion project. The government reached its decision after Palestinians and left-wing Israelis protested the expansion and warned that it could disrupt the peace process.
The government ultimately reached a compromise with Efrat’s leaders to expand on land closer to their community.
Despite the compromise reached with the government, Riskin took a hard line against the coalition led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He predicted an all- out war if the government continued to halt expansion of settlements.
Saying his remarks about UJA “came out wrong” at the news conference in the New York, Riskin noted that his own Ohr Torah Educational Institutions in Jerusalem are helped by UJA funds.
At the same time, however, Riskin, in the phone interview, reiterated the position he articulated at the news conference that American Jews should give directly to projects in the territories.
“I am in favor of strengthening Judea and Samaria,” he said.
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