Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Boteach To Publish Book on Michael Jackson

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach will release a book based on his interviews with the late Michael Jackson.

Boteach conducted 30 hours of taped interviews with Jackson more than eight years ago that are said to reveal much about the singer’s life, his views on celebrity and what motivated him.

“NBC Dateline” is scheduled to run a one-hour special next weekend on Boteach and the book, The Jewish Week reported.

“Michael loved coming to our house for Friday night dinners with his kids,” Rabbi Boteach told The Jewish Week.

The rabbi met Jackson about 10 years ago and struck up a friendship.

Boteach says that in in the summer of 2000, and for about 10 months, the two met regularly during the week.

“We started our conversations on Shabbat, the only day of the week with no intrusions or distractions,” Boteach said. “He had nothing but distractions in his life; he was always so busy.”

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.