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Reb Shmuley on Britney

I became very impressed with Shmuley Boteach a decade ago, when he served as rabbi at Oxford. He clearly had a unique talent.

Unfortunately, while his talent remains, he has since demeaned himself by his obsession with celebrity, including his infamous trip to the Upper West Side's Carlebach Shul with Michael Jackson.

After writing and appearing on talk shows about Jackson, Boteach has now turned his attention to Britney Spears. In Thursday's Jerusalem Post, he offers an "open letter" to Spears.

You and I once met, in the hotel room of Michael Jackson in late 2000 (I was the short one with the frizzy whiskers)...

A few weeks after your meeting with Michael Jackson, he and I were watching you on TV. You were doing some interview (and though I don't remember exactly what you said, I do remember that you were partial to the word "like"). Michael turned to me and said, "In a few years, this girl is gone from the public eye. Nobody's gonna care about her. She is all over the place. There is no mystery. I would never do what she does. I hold myself back."

In between his tales about hanging out with Jackson, Boteach offers strong criticism:

You are one of the people largely responsible for religiously inclined people like me feeling that our daughters must be increasingly cut off from popular culture. We are having to become much more strict with how our daughters dress, what music they listen to, who their friends are – all because we would rather be mauled by Rottweilers than ever allow our daughters to grow up dressing and acting like you.

Nothing Boteach says is objectionable. But his almost exclusive focus on pop culture and celebrity - and his own role in it - is.

Fortunately, Boteach remains young, and it's not too late for him to resist the evil inclination to focus on Britney, Michael and being on TV more than all other Orthodox Jews combined. For his sake and our sake, let's hope Boteach returns to the themes of the weekly newsletters he distributed during his early years at Oxford.
posted on 1/14/2004