Catholic League president Bill Donohue, a vocal conservative voice who recently warred with The Daily Show over a "vagina manger," has infuriated prominent Jewish leaders with a private email last week to Philadelphia Rabbi Arthur Waskow.

Waskow, a progressive rabbi involved in the Jewish Renewal movement, had criticized the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a Huffington Post op-ed for "attacking the religious freedom of millions of American women and the religious freedom of American nuns" over contraception.

Donohue responded with a note to Waskow that launched an email exchange that ended with a warning, forwarded to BuzzFeed by a source close to the rabbi, that "Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends since they have so few of them" (Donohue writes that this is a saying of Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York). Donohue also includes a postscript saying, "I do not have a long nose."

Donahue also raised a recent child abuse scandal in Orthodox Jewish communities.

"You need to do something about this epidemic right now," he told Waskow, who is not Orthodox, suggesting that Jews follow the Catholic Church's reforms in dealing with clerical abuse.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, Donohue defended his words.

"Waskow is a man full of hate," he said, calling Waskow's op-ed "the kind of thing I'd expect from Bill Maher, not from a rabbi."

"Who the hell is he?" Donohue said. "I don't tell Jews what to do when they have people who are miscreants in their community."

Donohue's "long nose" comment was in reference to something Waskow said in the previous email: "Would you also suggest I keep my long Jewish nose out of some Catholic priests’ rape of Catholic children and some Catholic bishops’ protection of those priests from the law, because I’m not a Catholic? Perhaps you would." (Donohue had told him "you have stuck your nose in where you don’t belong.")

Koch, the former mayor of New York, said that he never said the quote Donohue attributes to him.

"My comments have always been about fostering good feelings between Jews and Catholics toward mutual understanding of our shared interests," Koch said in a statement. "However, I certainly do not believe that Jews, or Catholics, should be threatened for making critical remarks, nor should my name be used when doing so. While I do have a high regard for Bill, his references to me and my remarks were inappropriate and different in substance and tone than what I said on an earlier occasion. My remarks did not and do not refer to the Rabbi's comments."

Donohue told BuzzFeed that Koch "has said that many times. I just heard from Ed last week." He provided BuzzFeed with the first two emails in the exchange with Waskow.

In a statement, Waskow said “Bill Keller of the New York Times reported on Monday morning, ‘The official church has moved far enough to the right that Donohue now speaks for its mainstream.’ Now we will find out whether that includes threatening Jews for disagreeing with the Church hierarchy."

Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center, a prominent figure in the Jewish Reform movement, voiced support for Waskow in a statement, calling Donohue's email "disheartening."

"Certainly, the importance of both the health care rights of women and the social justice passion of the Catholic nuns who serve on the front lines of our neediest citizens’ struggles for economic justice deserve a more respectful response," Saperstein said.