Michael Jackson and the Talmudic "rabbi to the stars"

[maz]

Michael Jackson studied under a celebrity "rabbi to the stars," who was heavily involved Chabad (although they pretty much disowned him I guess). Nothing really sinister here, but with regards to Michael Jackson's allegations into peodophelia, it is interesting that this rabbi would be helping MJ out with a charity for children. Sends up a bit of a belated red flag, sort of.

Here is his statement on MJ's death:

I just got off the phone with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the rockstar rabbi who was a close friend of the, as of a few hours ago, late Michael Jackson when the two worked together on Heal the Kids,

"It is an American tragedy," Boteach said. "This guy could sing and dance—he lived the American dream and this is the end of the story. This is not what our values are supposed to be about."

"It was obvious what Michael always needed," the rabbi continued. "He needed connection with God, spirituality and family. Michael was a Jehovah's Witness and when he was a Jehovah's Witness he was doing quite well, but then he had a falling out with the church and that is when all these problems began."

Here is more on MJ and Boteach

http://www.slate.com/id/103323/

To understand why Shmuley Boteach is one of the world's most prominent rabbis, you do not have to pore over learned Talmudic disputations (he isn't known for his erudition) or attend a Sabbath service (he hasn't led a congregation of his own for several years). You simply have to scan the dedication to one of his latest books, Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments. "To Michael," it reads, "who taught me of humility." Michael, of course, is none other than Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, and Boteach manages to slip references to their relationship into most of his interviews and writings. The rabbi is currently co-authoring a parenting book with the blanched superstar and sponsoring a Jackson-led charity dedicated, unbelievably enough, to ensuring that children receive appropriate amounts of affection. And just a few weeks ago, Boteach orchestrated one of the most bizarre coups in the annals of American pop-cultural imperialism, arranging for Jackson to speak at the Oxford Union, that university's august debating society.

Shmuley—he is known universally by his first name—is the best-selling author of Kosher Sex and has marketed himself as a rabbi to the stars and an expert on Jewish attitudes toward relationships and marriage. ("Dr. Ruth with a yarmulke," the Washington Post called him.) Despite Jackson's lesson in humility, he approaches self-promotion with religious fervor. As he told one reporter, his own Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shalt do anything for publicity and recognition."

When Shmuley was 13, he met the movement's charismatic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whom some considered then to be the Messiah and still do today, even after his death seven years ago. The Rebbe, as Schneerson was called, bestowed upon Shmuley a generous blessing—friends joked that perhaps Shmuley was the Messiah—and later dispatched him, at age 22, to Oxford to serve as a religious emissary. There Shmuley founded the L'Chaim Society, which he quickly turned into the university's second largest club by recruiting high-profile speakers to address topics often only tangentially related to Judaism. Boy George spoke about redemption after drug addiction, and Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona told of praying at the Western Wall in preparation for the World Cup.

As Shmuley's stature on campus grew, his relations with the Lubavitch leadership began to fray. The L'Chaim Society attracted as many non-Jews as Jews—its president one year was an African-American Baptist—and his peers felt Shmuley was spending too much time courting gentiles, thereby diluting outreach efforts and possibly even encouraging intermarriage. Shmuley replied with what would become his signature defense: that broadening the visibility of Judaism to the general public would inevitably, if circuitously, attract Jews. "To get Jews interested in the Jewish world," he later said, "you have to get the non-Jews interested. The Jews will follow what the non-Jews are doing."

Few in the Orthodox Jewish establishment agree. In 1994 Shmuley was officially rejected by Crown Heights after inviting Yitzhak Rabin to speak at L'Chaim against the orders of the Rebbe, who strongly opposed Rabin's land-for-peace position. The penalty was largely symbolic, since Shmuley had become a master fund-raiser (using British parsonage laws to purchase a second home in North London) and was financially independent. In 1998, Shmuley entered the Preacher of the Year Contest, sponsored by the London Times, becoming the first Jew to reach the final rounds. (He took second place; the next year he won.) And he churned out a stream of articles and books on relationships, an authorial fecundity climaxing in 1999 with Kosher Sex. With its gleeful discussions of intercourse, the book shocked the British Orthodox community, which forced him out of his North London synagogue. Shmuley moved to New York, where he published excerpts of Kosher Sex in Playboy and debated the merits of pornography with Larry Flynt. He became a fixture of celebrity culture, ushering Michael Jackson to an Upper West Side synagogue, setting Roseanne's daughter up with a nice Jewish boy, and trading spiritual recipes with Deepak Chopra.

cont

[scorpio]

Yes Rabbi Scholomo was MJ's 'consultant'. I heard him today on CNN as an 'expert' about MJ's life. He was calling in from Iceland.
What in the hell was he doing in Iceland anyway.  :roll:
I think Henry Ford had it right: The International Jew