More in ‘Michael Jackson’

Thank goodness the A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin read Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s The Michael Jackson Tapes so we don’t have to, confirming the suspicion that the book, a combination of interviews with Jackson and the New Jersey-based rabbi’s own thoughts, is “the worst kind of posthumous cash-in from a rabbi who accomplishes the seemingly impossible feat of ...

Opportunist (and rabbi) Shmuley Boteach today starts hawking The Michael Jackson Tapes, a new book based on 30 hours of conversations he had with the late pop star. Among its big revelations is Jackson’s admiration for Hitler, whom he called a “genius orator,” according to Britain’s Daily Mail. “To make that many people turn and ...

Legendary Variety columnist Army Archerd died yesterday after a 50-year career at the paper. He broke the news that Rock Hudson was being treated for AIDS in 1985, told colleagues he fought alongside Herman Wouk in World War II (providing the novelist inspiration for a character in the Pulitzer-winning novel The Caine Mutiny), and, most ...

• The Holocaust Museum shooter, James von Brunn, was indicted for first-degree murder, and is therefore eligible for the death penalty. [Washington Post]
• Canada’s largest Protestant sect, the United Church of Canada, plans to call for a “comprehensive boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.” Canadian Jewish groups have called this an “obscene gesture.” [JTA]
• ...

Finally, an answer to the are-Michael Jackson’s-children-Jewish debate from no less an authority than Roseanne Barr. (Jackson’s ex-wife, who may or may not be the mother of the two older kids, is Jewish.) Barr took to her blog this week to, first, offer herself as a “granny” to the kids and then clear up the ...

• The editor of the New Jersey Jewish News makes a case for summer camp for adults. Is he vying for the newly-vacated CEO position at the Foundation for Jewish Camp? [NJJN]
• Moment magazine surveys the role of Jews in fashion, from Ralph Lauren to Levi Okunov. [Moment]
• A blogger links Michael Jackson’s funeral to ...

• Amnesty International reports that by its standards, both Israel and Hamas are guilty of committing war crimes during the recent conflict in Gaza. [London Times]
• The city of Rome has made kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit an honorary citizen and taken up the cause of his release. [Ynet]
• The photographer who runs the HaChayim ...

• Everyone’s wondering, will Michael Jackson’s kids be raised by their Jewish mother? And if she used a donor egg, are they still Jews? [JTA]
• A Palestinian American comedian wrote a parodic column positing that Facebook is a Zionist conspiracy; too bad it’s so unfunny, some people might mistake it for an earnest theory. ...

Most surprising to some (or to us, anyway) in the coverage of the death of the phenomenally successful and influential pop singer Michael Jackson is the appearance in recent photos of a bendel, the red string bracelet Kabbalah adherents wear to help ward off the evil eye. He reportedly began an on-going exploration of the ...