Shmuley Boteach - the rabbi of the groupies!

AJNWatch has previously commented upon Shmuley Boteach and his outlandish and peculiar ideas and behaviour (see here, here, and here). He is back again in Australia and, unsurprisingly, a guest speaker in Caulfield Shul. That's the direction CHC have taken under their latest 'management' and they sure have found the perfect match.  

After all, if a Shul can't attract the crowds with Torah and Tefillah, maybe "Kosher sex" and "Kosher Jesus" will bring in the masses (no pun intended). Come to think of it, they would probably have no problem inviting Jesus himself to deliver a sermon or two. (After all, they did invite a "galach" to "feer tish" for them at a Shabbat meal.)

No doubt the femalefolk will be sporting their "Shmuley groupie" T-shirts and drinking from "Shmuley-groupie" mugs?

PS: What next, Shmuley? "Kosher groupies"?

PPS: For those reading this who may wonder what a groupie is, here's the definition from the on-line Free Dictionary:

groupie [ˈgruːpɪ]

(Music / Pop Music) Slang, an ardent fan of a celebrity, esp a pop star: originally, often a girl who followed the members of a pop group on tour in order to have sexual relations with them

SMH on Shmuley and Rodney's visit to the Pope

The Chutzpah of these goyim!
Describing our Shmuley as "a self-styled rabbi"!

Come in, sinner: Adler and His Holiness press the flesh
MICHAEL EVANS May 4, 2010

When in Rome ... Pope Benedict meets Rodney Adler at the Vatican last week. "I discussed for about 15 seconds how I felt that making Friday night family night transcended religion."

RODNEY ADLER'S redemption appears to be complete.

It's not the first brush with fame the rabbi has arranged for Mr Adler - he also arranged for Mr Adler's family to stay with Jackson at his Neverland ranch.

The disgraced Sydney businessman, jailed over his involvement in the collapse of the insurance giant HIH, received an audience at the Vatican last week with Pope Benedict.

Mr Adler was the guest of his friend Shmuley Boteach, a self-styled rabbi and author of a book about the late singer Michael Jackson, as well as Oprah Winfrey's parenting and relationships expert.
The delegation met the Pope as part of his weekly audience in St Peter's Square, seeking backing for a ''Turn Friday Night into Family Night'' initiative. The American rabbi wants parents of all faiths to spend Friday nights at home to give their family uninterrupted time.

''Rodney emphasised to the Pope the importance of partnering with me on creating an international family dinner night and how much he believed in the idea,'' the rabbi's website says of Mr Adler's meeting with His Holiness. The Pope ''warmly agreed''.

Mr Adler missed about 130 Friday night family dinners with his wife Lyndi and their children while serving 2½ years in prison for obtaining $2 million from HIH by false or misleading statements and being dishonest as a director. HIH collapsed in 2001 with debts of $5.3 billion.

But his recollection of last week's meeting was less certain than his friend's. ''My conversation with the Pope was quite short,'' Mr Adler told the Herald. ''It went something like, 'Your Holiness, it's a great pleasure and privilege to meet you' and then I discussed for about 15 seconds how I felt that making Friday night family night transcended religion. It was a global issue. ''He did not say yes or no, he just acknowledged it with an appreciative smile … and then moved on.''

Mr Adler was one of two ''close friends'' the rabbi invited to meet the Pope. Days before Mr Adler was sentenced in 2005, Rabbi Boteach, who studied in Australia, led a stirring defence of his friend at Sydney's Central Synagogue. Rabbi Boteach has opened other doors for Mr Adler. ''I had great pleasure of going to Neverland while it was under Michael Jackson's control; I spent three days there, and my children still talk about it. It was interesting - but different to the papal visit.''

His Holiness meets His Shmuleyness (and a local note)

Shmuley gives the Holy Father advice on how to improve the Catholic church's standing and reputation. It's a real pity that he wasn't around a few hundred years ago when the Inquisition was in full swing.

And seeing that the whole Christian church "business" was started by a "Jewish rabbi", it makes sense that Rabbi Shmuley has such altruistic  feelings towards it.

My Meeting with Pope Benedict
by Shmuley Botach

I had my meeting with the Pope today at his Wednesday audience. Let me first give you an idea of the setting. There were approximately fifteen thousand people from all over the world gathered in St. Peter’s Square speaking an untold number of languages. The sun shone very brightly. The day was perfect. The Pope arrived in his pope-mobile to great excitement and fanfare. His vehicle was open-top. I assumed they didn’t need the protective bubble that has become so iconic on TV because there was security screening for each person present. As the Pope drove among the crowd they shouted ‘Viva Papa - Long live the Pope.’ There seemed to be genuine affection and excitement among the Catholic pilgrims who had gathered from all over the world.
The pope drove up the incline and arrived in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. The people who were there to meet him sat on both sides of his dais. There were clergymen from all over the world: Cardinals, Bishops, and priests from the Catholic Church. I sat next to three Anglican Bishops from the UK. With me was my friend Gary Krupp, head of the Pave the Way Foundation, who had arranged the visit and several of his officers.
The Pope read greetings in give languages and an American priest welcomed our group publicly from the Pope’s dais. The Pope waived to us.

When the formal ceremony, lasting about two hours ended, the Pope came off his dais and moved along the receiving line to greet us. Gary introduced me to the Pope warmly with my formal titles. I gave the Pope a special gift we had gotten for him. It was a beautiful dual-time Phillip Stein watch. The Pope lit up when he saw it and said, “Look, it has two faces on it,” which, as it happened, was the perfect introduction for me to share the issues I had prepared. I said, “Pope Benedict, it’s an honor to meet you. This watch has the times of Rome and Jerusalem on it, signifying the eternal friendship between our two faiths. I also hope that when you wear it the future of the Jew people will always be on your mind, as Israel struggles with existential threats, like Iran, who threaten to wipe it off the map. You’re voice against these threats is essential, Your holiness.”

He said ‘Yes,’ nodding his head in agreement, and I continued. “In addition, Your holiness, the dual clock face is a symbol of my request that you please join us in establishing a global family dinner night which we call, ‘Turn Friday Night into Family Night.’ It involves what we call the triple two. Two hours of uninterrupted time that parents give their kids, inviting two guests, just as I am your guest today, and discussing two important subjects.”

While I said this Pope Benedict again nodded.

I concluded, ‘Your holiness, it’s so important that our two religions work together on this.’ He said warmly, ‘We will work together. We will work together.’ He held my hand while we spoke. The watch we gave the Pope as a gift has special resonance because the owner, Will Stein, is an orthodox German convert to Judaism.

I had invited my close friends David Victor, Chairman of the Board of AIPAC, and Rodney Adler, to the meeting with the Pope. Rodney emphasized to the Pope the importance of partnering with me on creating an international family dinner night and how much he believed in the idea. The Pope again warmly agreed. David then respectfully but firmly pressed the Pope on the need to address the Iran crisis, ‘a regime which denies the holocaust and threatens to destroy Israel and is building nuclear weapons.’ The Pope said, “I have spoken about it and will continue to.”

As soon as the meeting was over, I was granted another meeting with Cardinal Walter Casper, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.’ Gary introduced me to the Cardinal and made a strong pitch for the importance of the worldwide Church partnering with us to create our international family dinner initiative. The Cardinal, a very pleasant priest from Germany who has been close friends with Pope Benedict for forty years, strongly endorsed the idea and related his memories of family dinners with his own parents.

I made the case to the Cardinal that the pedophile priest scandal has many influential American commentators skewering the Church for being an all-boys club, seemingly anti-family. It was essential, I argued, that the Church recapture its reputation as one of the world’s foremost champions of the family. He agreed emphatically and said he agreed that the Church should partner with us.

My friend David Victor then again brought up the threat that Iran poses to Israel. The Cardinal said that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to the world. He asked David to write to him and Cardinal Bertone, the Cardinal Secretary of State, with suggestions of what could be done.

It was an exciting day. Five of my nine children were with me, as well as both my parents.

And here's the beginning of a CNN report on Shmuley's vatican adventures:

A rabbi walks into St. Peter's Square, meets the pope, and tells the Holy Father that one way to defuse the sex abuse scandal plaguing the church is for the Vatican to begin promoting a secular version of Shabbat dinner, the traditional Jewish Friday meal.


It's no joke.   MORE

Shmuley is sure giving his kids a well-rounded upbringing. Playing with Michael Jackson's children and visiting "Uncle Pope".

Oh, and anyone know how Rodney Adler got included in the mix? (Did you notice how Shmuley doesn't even try to explain to his readers who Rodney is? A bit strange, no?)

******

Meanwhile locally our rabbis will have to make their journey to the Vatican one step at a time. Who knows? Maybe one day Rabbi Meir Shlomo too, will have the privilege and honor to give advice to the Bishop of Rome and even wish the Pontiff "a good Yontiff".

Look who's advising the Pope!

Shmuel Boteach sermonising to the Catholic Church: “Adopt Hilchos Yichud” !
Not such a bad idea, actually…

And here's another. Advising the Pope to push for Friday night family dinners. Yep, gefilteh fish and chicken soup should go far in solving the Church's problems.

SHMULEY AND ANOTHER FRIEND

Even a pope needs friends
By SHMULEY BOTEACH  - Jerusalem Post

...There is much in Jewish law and tradition that could bring healing to the Church, beginning with the Jewish laws of sexual seclusion. In Judaism a man and woman who are not married are not allowed to be in a locked room together. When I was rabbi to Michael Jackson, I took this law and applied it to his special circumstances. I told him the only way he could rehabilitate his reputation after the pedophile accusations was to simply forswear ever being alone with a child. I even grabbed Michael’s shoulders and made him promise me he would never seclude himself with a child not his own.
 
And for the two years for which we were close, he stuck to the script. When he and I launched our initiative to help children, the focus was on working with parents to make their kids a top priority, rather than with the kids themselves.
It wasn’t until he stupidly disregarded this simple advice and decided to share a bed – however platonically – with a young child and then brag about it on TV that he was arrested, and so began the inexorable decline that ended in his death a few years later.

THE CHURCH should embrace the same straightforward rule. No priest should be allowed to be alone with a child. Period. If a priest needs to speak to a child alone, the door must never be locked and there must always be the possibility that they can be intruded upon. If they walk in a park, it cannot be one that is empty. This way we’ll know that any priest who breaks the guidelines will be punished, whether or not he abuses a child. It would significantly curb the potential for child molestation, and might even discourage pedophiles from entering the priesthood...

For the full article, (where Boteach also makes the amazing claim that "Benedict has been a great friend to the Jewish community") click here.

Shmuley Boteach on the Rubashkin case

For once AJN Watch agrees 100% with Shmuley Boteach.

Editorial By Shmuley Boteach:
Does a Kosher Butcher’s Fraud Mandate a Life Sentence?

New York - At middle age I have come to accept my limitations. Although I like to have an opinion on almost everything, I am conscious of the fact that I am not a legal scholar and do not understand all the complexities of the criminal case against Shalom Rubashkin, the former CEO of America’s largest kosher meat plant, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa.

But I am not a stupid man either. And I, and a heck of a lot of other fairly intelligent and educated people are scratching our heads as to why government prosecutors are requesting that Rubashkin, who has ten children, including an autistic son, and a reputation for enormous philanthropy, be given a life sentence in prison.

A life behind bars. The very words are ominous. Isn’t that reserved for society’s most heinous offenders? Life sentence has one conjuring images of rapists and murderers, international drug cartel kingpins and white-collar criminals guilty of gargantuan fraud, like Bernie Madoff.

What did Rubashkin do? After an INS raid on the plant that found hundreds of illegal immigrants, the company was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy and Rubashkin, who had already been arrested for employing illegals, was subsequently found guilty of defrauding a bank and producing false invoices in order to keep the business going. There is no insinuation that he did any of this for personal profit or gain. Unlike Madoff, he had no Hamptons estate, no fancy yacht, and no Manhattan penthouse. By all accounts he and his family lived in incredibly modest circumstances.

Obviously, the Rubashkin story has been an enormous embarrassment to the American Jewish community in general and orthodoxy in particular. The largest kosher meat plant in the country employing hundreds of illegal immigrants? Engaging in bank fraud in order to remain a going concern? Falsifying invoices and misleading lenders? These are serious charges that go against both terrestrial and celestial law and constitute actions that neither man nor G-d can condone. The expected flight of Jewish leaders and spokespeople from Rubashkin’s side ensued, whatever the injustice of his proposed sentence. We Jews are accustomed to run from scandal like the plague.

So let’s remove the smoke from this unsavory story and focus on truth.

Yes, we Jews unfortunately have our criminals. Yes, we orthodox Jews unfortunately have our felons. We’re human, too. We have people guilty of serious wrongdoing. And we too must confess our sins, repent of our actions, be punished for our crimes, and teach our children to always do better and never excuse our behavior. Our community need to know that no matter how important you believe it is for other Jews to eat kosher food, you cannot purchase that mitzvah at any price. You cannot be a good Jew if you are not an honest person. A religious obligation that comes through theft – even when your intention is to simply keep a business open so you can eventually pay off your loans – subverts all principles of religious morality.

Rubashkin is no hero. Whatever the nobility of his intentions, he is a poor example to religious youth. His behavior must and should be condemned. He has been found guilty of a crime and he must do the time.

But he is no monster either. Unlike Wall Street bankers, he did not bet the farm and other people’s deposits in order to buy himself a Ferrari. Unlike AIG executives, he did not cost the government billions in bailouts and then get a bonus. And while I, of course, understand that criminal conduct is infinitely more serious, so is prosecutorial overzealousness that borders on fanaticism.

The time that Rubashkin serves must be fair and just. This is America. Just as there is no room for toleration of criminal conduct, there is also no room for a lynch mob mentality. I realize I am not a lawyer. But I have enough sense to understand that a punishment of a few years in prison sets an unassailable example that criminal conduct is utterly inexcusable. Anything more than that for a crime of this nature gives the false impression that the American justice system is prejudicial and untrustworthy.

As for the outcry from the Hassidic community that Rubashkin is being treated unfairly and that his yarmulke and beard make for a prosecutorial bull’s-eye, I love America too much to believe any of it. This is the fairest, most decent country on earth. But I do believe it possible that when an overtly religious person perpetrates a crime – especially one that involves companies catering to religious needs – there is a feeling on the part of many that the hypocrisy mandates an even harsher sentence.

So let’s be clear.  This is not in any way analogous to other ugly religious stories dominating the news like pedophile priests. There is no suggestion that Rubashkin’s crimes be covered up. Less so is there any insinuation that Rubashkin be moved to another state where he can start up a new kosher meat plant. Rubashkin’s trustworthiness in the American Jewish community is finished.

But there is an insistence that he be treated like a human being. That it be taken into consideration that he has no prior offenses and that his company provided kosher meat to hundreds of thousands of people at affordable prices so that more Jews could observe their faith. That he and his family are legendary in the Hassidic community for their charitable giving, their hospitality, and their communal involvement. That Rubashkin himself devoted a substantial portion of his profits to funding a soup kitchen and supporting organizations like Collel Chabad that feed the hungry and the poor. To disregard all these considerations when it comes to sentencing is to disregard the universal belief that the good we do is not cancelled out by our horrendous mistakes.

I know my own limitations. Perhaps Rubashkin’s prosecutors ought to know theirs as well.

See the comments section on vosizneias.com for some pretty sharp views on this case. Eg,

Anonymous Says:
I’m surprised the prosecutors didn’t ask for the death penalty, we truly are living in a modern day Sodom…

Michael Jackson - Death notice poster in Israel

A reader from Israel sent us the above photograph of a street notice announcing the death of Michael Jackson - using a Hebrew version of his names. Presumably this is a spoof (though one can't be sure, after reading Boteach's eulogy).

Shmuley Boteach: Not enough space between the 'eyes'...

The ‘Hesped’ on Michael Jackson by Shmuley Boteach [AJN 3/7/09 http://tinyurl.com/mbofub ] probably says as much about Boteach and his family as it does about Jackson.

Rather than being embarrassed by his close relationship with this notorious weirdo, menuval and alleged paedophile, Boteach tells us that his daughter burst into tears when learning of Jackson’s demise.

How can a so-called ‘orthodox’ rabbi and indeed one that calls himself a Lubavitch chosid, allow his children to be exposed this bizarre and creepy individual whose live-in partner was an ape?

Is Boteach proud of the fact that his friend’s friend was a chimpanzee?

The question many ask is - is there truly no level that Boteach won’t sink to for the sake of publicity and self-promotion?

Talking of self-promotion, perceptive AJN readers would have become aware of Boteach's serious blemish, ie, not having enough space between his eyes. Or rather –“I”s.
Yep. No less than 21 times does Rabbi Shmuley use the word “I” in that short obituary of his mate. One could be forgiven for thinking that he was actually eulogising himself…

*****
A quick Google search also brought up the following – which require no commentary.

Jackson was loving and attentive father, many say
By JOCELYN NOVECK AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - When Rabbi Shmuley Boteach brought his children to play with Michael Jackson's kids at Neverland Ranch some eight years ago, the rabbi's youngsters naturally made a beeline for the fabulous rides - the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster, the bumper cars. But when Jackson's own kids asked to go on the rides, he gently reminded them of the family rules, according to Boteach: The rides were only for birthdays or special occasions.

"He was very concerned that the kids grow up with the right values," says Boteach, Jackson's former friend and spiritual adviser…

"To the extent that Michael Jackson's kids COULD have a normal life, he wanted them to have it," says Boteach, who eventually fell out with Jackson.

"Listen, I'm not here to whitewash the sins of Michael Jackson - he was accused of some abominable things," says the rabbi, referring to the pop star's trial and acquittal on molestation charges. "But when it came to being a father, there was much to admire."
…Of course, even Jackson's closest friends are at a loss to explain what for many is the single most memorable image of Jackson as a father: the shocking moment when he dangled Blanket, then an infant, over a hotel balcony in Berlin, showing the baby off to fans with a delighted grin. "What made that incident so inexplicable was that he was an OVER-protective father," Boteach says. http://wtop.com/?nid=114&sid=1710445

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Michael's Messages

"Jew me, sue me.....kick me, kike me...." Lyrics from a 1995 Michael Jackson song

"They're like leeches....the Jews do it on purpose..." Recorded phone message from Jackson, 2005

These quotations, coupled with the report from Panorama magazine that Jackson had followed the lead of his brother Jermaine and converted to Islam, would seem to indicate that the late singer was essentially hostile to Jews and Judaism.

Yet, equally credible reports indicate that he was a frequent Sabbath guest at the home of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who toured with Michael Jackson in 1999 and brought him along to the Carlebach Shul in Manhattan that year.

I do not understand the connection between the two men, who had very different outlooks.
Perhaps Jackson then felt a need for a rabbi in his life, and Boteach felt the need for a rich homosexual pedophile in his. Go figure!

Most bizarre of the connections between Michael Jackson and the Jewish people is that his second wife Debbie Jean Rowe (Mrs Jackson 1996-1999), the mother of his two older children (Michael Joseph and Paris Michael Katharine), is Jewish! According to Jewish law, the children are Jewish too, although they may not know it. http://glazerbeam.blogspot.com/2009/07/michaels-messages.html