Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the Orthodox Jewish rabbi who is known for his secular outreach and TLC show "Shalom in the Home," was friends with Michael Jackson for several years.
Jackson rabbi-friend: Singer was ‘a tortured, tortured soul’
Tag Archives: people
Al Qaeda threatens France for perceived anti-burqa stance
Al Qaeda threatened to "take revenge" on France "by every means and wherever we can reach them" because of a debate in France over whether the burqa, a traditional Islamic woman’s covering, violates French law, according to a statement posted on radical Islamist Web sites. “We will not tolerate such provocations and injustices, and we will take our revenge from France,” said the statement, signed by Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, calling himself “commander of al Qaeda in North Africa [Islamic Maghreb].” The statement is dated June 28, five days after French President Nicolas Sarkozy controversially told lawmakers that the traditional Muslim garment was “not welcome” in France
Around the World, Young Tamil Voices Not Quieted By War’s End
Sri Lanka’s 26 years of civil war effectively ended on May 19, 2009 with a single image. Televisions across the globe broadcast a government-issue photo of slain Tamil Tiger head, Velupillai Prabhakaran, lying on a muddy patch of ground with wide eyes and a fractured skull. His life’s end terminated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s decades-long fight for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority — about ten percent of the population — and a cycle of violence that Sri Lankans of all ethnicities and religions have been living with for decades
Will recent GOP sex scandals affect upcoming races?
It has been a rocky couple of weeks for the Republican Party as high-profile, traditional-values politicians have faced embarrassing sex scandals. First it was Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, who admitted in a news conference two weeks ago to having an affair with a former staffer.
The Story of Barack Obama’s Mother
Each of us lives a life of contradictory truths. We are not one thing or another
Iran deadline nears without complaint filed
No Iranian presidential candidates had filed complaints as a Monday deadline approached in the country’s disputed presidential election, state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported. The powerful conservative Guardian Council last week extended the deadline for filing complaints after two candidates — Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi — questioned the legitimacy of the June 12 vote count
First Comes Love, Then Comes Obesity?
It’s full-on wedding season, but anyone about to pledge to have and to hold should pay closer attention to the bit about “in sickness and in health.” New research shows that within a few short years of getting hitched, married individuals are twice as likely to become obese as are people who are merely dating.
Iranian minister blames Britain, U.S. for unrest
Iran’s intelligence minister Sunday blamed Western powers for stirring up protests over its disputed presidential election, singling out Britain and saying the British Embassy in Tehran "played a heavy role in the recent disturbances." “The fact that Iran is stable, calm and secure, they’re upset with this,” Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hosein Mohseni Ejei told Iran’s Press TV.
Influential Iranian cleric: Vote fallout a ‘tangled mess’
After more than two weeks of silence amid Iran’s violent election fallout, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — a key Iranian cleric — emerged Sunday to call out "suspicious sources" who are creating a rift between the public and the Islamic government. He called the aftermath of the June 12 presidential election “a tangled mess, perpetrated by suspicious sources whose objectives are to create differences and separations between the people and the system and eroding the trust of the people in the Islamic system,” the Iranian Labor News Agency reported Sunday.
‘Gayby boom’: Children of gay couples speak out
Jesse Levey is a Republican activist who says he believes in family values, small government and his lesbian mothers’ right to marry. Levey is part of the “gayby boom” generation. The 29-year-old management consultant is the son of a lesbian couple who chose to have a child through artificial insemination