title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: According to Smith, "The song is about hyperventilating—kissing and fainting to the floor." The lyrics were inspired by a trip with his then-girlfriend (and later wife) Mary Poole to Beachy Head in southern England. Smith said the opening line of the song ("Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick") refers to his childhood memories of mastering magic tricks, but added "on another [level], it's about a seduction trick, from much later in my life".


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: "Just Like Heaven" was the third single released from the band's "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" album. "Melody Maker"s review of the single was undecided; writer David Stubbs described it as "a colourful, fluttery, fussy thing" and "unimpeachable", but added, "[it] turns my face green, as if having consumed too many truffles." The song was the Cure's eleventh top 40 hit in the UK, and stayed on the charts there for five weeks during October and November 1987, peaking at number 29. In the United States, "Just Like Heaven" became the Cure's first top 40 hit when it reached number 40 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for one week in January 1988.


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said "the stately 'Just Like Heaven' [...] is remarkable and helps make the album ["Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me"] one of the group's very best". Ned Raggett, also of AllMusic, wrote that the song was "instantly memorable, [and] sparkling with rough energy [...] it's a perfect showcase for Robert Smith's ear for wistful, romantic numbers. His main guitar line, a descending, gently chiming melody, contrasts perfectly against the fuzzier mix of the rhythm guitars, while Simon Gallup's bass and Boris Williams' strong, immediate drums make for a great introduction to the track." Barry Walsh of "Slant" magazine said the Cure "...is at the top of its game [...] on the simply stellar 'Just Like Heaven'. Glistening descending guitar lines, Gallup's throbbing bass line, and Williams' authoritative thumping frame a typically lovelorn Smith lyric, with the end result being one of the Cure's finest singles, and perhaps one of the best pop singles of the late '80s."


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Although the later singles "Lovesong" and "Friday I'm in Love" reached higher chart positions, "Just Like Heaven" was the band's American breakthrough, and has been described as "in American terms, at least, the one Cure song everyone seems to know." The song inspired the name of, and was used in the 2005 film "Just Like Heaven". In 2004 "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked it number 483 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", number 488 in 2010, and number 108 in 2021. In 2005 "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Just Like Heaven" 25th on its list of "The 50 Greatest Love Songs", saying, "Turns out guys who wear black eyeliner can be happy." The following year the song placed at number 22 on VH1's poll "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s".


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Robert Smith said he considers "Just Like Heaven" to be one of the band's strongest works, and called it "the best pop song the Cure have ever done". Several high-profile fans have expressed their appreciation of the song. Musician Ben Folds told "Blender" "everything about it—the songwriting, the music—is state of the art. It’s as good as it gets. Anytime I hear it on the radio or a mix tape, I jump around like a freak." J Mascis said his band Dinosaur Jr.'s affection for the song inspired them to record a cover version that was released in 1989. On 16 July 2006, "Just Like Heaven" was played as a wake-up call for the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery on their flight STS-121 at the request of astronaut Piers Sellers' family; Sellers told mission control center that the song reminded him of "the wild, happy, beer-drinking years of my youth."


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Just like Heaven was used extensively as the playout track on episode ten of the current series of the BBC TV drama New Tricks "The Queen's Speech" which was broadcast on Monday 20 October 2014.


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: The music video for "Just Like Heaven" was directed by Tim Pope, who had directed all of the band's previous videos since 1982's "Let's Go to Bed". The video was filmed in England's Pinewood Studios in October 1987. Set on a cliff overlooking a sea, the video recreates many of the memories detailed in the song's lyrics. When a fanzine asked Smith what the song was about, he said it was inspired by "something that happened to me a long time ago—see the video!" While Smith had claimed for years that the video was shot at the same place that inspired the song, he later admitted that the bulk of it was filmed in a studio, utilising footage of the water and cliffs of Beachy Head taken for the band's 1985 video for "Close to Me".


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: During the song's piano solo the sky turns to nighttime and the band is shown clad in white shirts. Mary Poole appears in this sequence as a woman dressed in white dancing with Smith. As Smith explained, "Mary dances with me in the video because she was the girl [in the song], so it had to be her." Pope later commented, "[Poole] can honestly lay claim to being the only featured female in any Cure video, ever."


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: A number of cover versions of "Just Like Heaven" have been released, including recordings in Spanish, French, and German.


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Katie Melua recorded a cover for the 2005 film "Just Like Heaven", which also appeared on her 2005 album "Piece by Piece". In the UK the cover was released as a double A-side single with "I Cried for You" in late 2005, and in the U.S. it became a minor adult contemporary radio hit in 2006.


title: Just Like Heaven (The Cure song)

text: Robert Smith's personal favourite is the cover recorded by American alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr., which was released as a single in the UK in 1989 (and 1990 in the US). Dinosaur Jr.'s version has a faster tempo and showcases the band's loud and distortion-heavy sound. The band's frontman J Mascis explained, "We recorded it for a compilation album, but when we finished it we liked it so much we didn't want to give it to them." Smith said, "J Mascis sent me a cassette, and it was so passionate. It was fantastic. I've never had such a visceral reaction to a cover version before or since", and even said the cover has "influenced how we play it live".


title: Lexie Liu

text: Lexie Liu, also known as Liu Boxin (; born December 21, 1998), is a Chinese singer, rapper and songwriter. In 2015, she participated in "K-pop Star 5", a South Korean reality TV competition series where her group came in fourth place. In July 2018, she participated in "The Rap of China" and won fourth place, which launched her career as a solo artist. In February 2019, Liu released her debut EP "2030" in the United States with eight singles including "Outta Time" featuring Killy, "Love and Run", "Hat Trick", and "Nada".


title: Lexie Liu

text: Liu was born and raised in Changsha, Hunan. She has been interested in music since she was young; she started to dance when she was four years old and learned to play the piano starting at six years old. When Liu was in grade eleven, she transferred to an international high school. However, she took a gap year when she was in grade twelve to make music. She went to Korea and participated in the reality TV competition series, "K-pop Star 5", under her birth name Liu Yuyu, as a member of a 4-person girl group named "Mazinga S" which won fourth place.


title: Lexie Liu

text: While shooting the TV show "K-pop Star 5", Liu applied and was accepted to Fordham University to study global business. However, she later left to pursue her music career.


title: Lexie Liu

text: In January 2017, Liu's first original single "Coco Made Me Do It" was released and achieved more than 5 million views. In February 2017, she performed at SXSW music festival, one of the largest music festivals in the world, bringing Chinese Pop music to the US audience.


title: Lexie Liu

text: In January 2018, she composed a song called "Role" for Li Yifeng, a Chinese popular idol, singer, and actor.


title: Lexie Liu

text: In July 2018, Liu participated in "The Rap of China", entered the final round with a song "Mulan," and eventually won fourth place. While competing in "The Rap of China", Liu signed with American label 88rising.


title: Lexie Liu

text: In November, she released her new song "Sleep Away" from her upcoming debut EP "2030" which was previously released in China. The Fader named the track as one of “10 Songs You Need in Your Life”, Nylon listed it as the “Best Music Releases Of The Week", and Refinery29 said “their ears are very into Lexie.”


title: Lexie Liu

text: On 18 December 2018, Liu released her new cyberpunk-influenced single "Nada", complete with futuristic-themed music video. "The Line of Best Fit" described "Nada" as it "sees Lexie Liu's fierce, cross-cultural grit thrust into a science fiction dimension where language barriers don't exist, She fuses Mandopop with grimy beats against the visuals of her accompanying Tron-esque video, directed by mamesjao, in a retro-futuristic digital world." "Nada" also made its appearance on "Best Of the Week" by Apple Music once it came out.


title: Lexie Liu

text: In February 2019, Liu released her debut EP "2030" in the United States, which included two new singles "Outta Time" featuring Killy and "Love and Run".


title: Lexie Liu

text: On October 28, 2020, Liu voiced the champion Seraphine in Riot Games' virtual K-pop group, K/DA, in their new song "More" from their extended play "All Out". Liu also performed on stage at the 2020 "League of Legends" World Championship in Shanghai.


title: Lexie Liu

text: On January 28, 2021, Liu released her second EP "Gone Gold" internationally (released as "Online 上线了" in China), featuring her then-newest single "ALGTR" which was self-written and self-produced alongside the rest of the EP. It marked yet another change in sound direction, with the EP taking in significantly more electro-pop influences compared to previous efforts. The project's contemporary theme, reflected in the title track's music videos and the rest of the track list's visualisers which were directed by frequent collaborator Jeremy Z. Qin, revolves around the idea of living in an online game as a character. It was inspired by the unrest experienced throughout 2020 as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, where Liu's only source of understanding the world was solely through a screen - leading her to imagine what life would be like without this source.


title: Lexie Liu

text: On 21 November 2022, Liu released a single by the name of "Fortuna" with an accompanying music video. "Fortuna" marks a slight change in Liu's style as a high-energy, electropop-inspired track making use of Mandarin, English, and Spanish in the lyrics. The song's lyrics and music video were heavily inspired by Egyptian mythology and tarot divination, having been named after the Roman goddess Fortuna, and making references to the Egyptian deities of Set and Anubis.


title: Lexie Liu

text: On 29 November 2022, Liu followed up the release of "Fortuna" with a single entitled "Magician," with both songs having been inspired by the same theme of tarot divination. The lyrics make reference to the major arcana of the Magician, the Moon, the Sun, and the general suits of the Cups, the Wands, and the Pentacles found in tarot decks. The musical style of "Magician" is a further exploration of heavy electronic music and was performed in English and Mandarin.


title: Lexie Liu

text: Lexie Liu's distinct appearance caught the attention of the fashion industry where she landed placements in Paris Fashion Week 2019 as the brand ambassador for Yves Saint Laurent eyewear in the Asia Pacific Region, Louis Vuitton Show 2018 in China, Puma's Suede 50 campaign and Levi's New Years TVC campaign.


title: Lexie Liu

text: Lexie Liu has also been featured on the print pages of East Asia's most prominent fashion publications, including Vogue me (China), BAZAAR China, Nylon Japan, and Nylon China.


title: Lexie Liu

text: The American fashion magazine "V" described her as "the face of a generation of new Chinese artists breaking into the American mainstream with a uniquely, cross-cultural sound."


title: Lexie Liu

text: "Lexie Liu proves her status as China’s next global superstar with the futuristic 'Nada'," described by The Line of Best Fit, "born and raised in Changsha, China, 19-year-old Lexie Liu's "Nada' is her third single release after signing to 88rising." "Lexie Liu is spearheading the new generation of East Asian artists making waves in the global music industry. She became the youngest Chinese artist to ever perform at SXSW last year after rising to fame on South Korean TV show 'K-pop Star' and finishing fourth on the heavily male-dominated rap talent show 'The Rap of China'".


title: Lexie Liu

text: After the release of her single "Like A Mercedes", the cyberpunk-inspired music video of the song was Lexie Liu's first introduction to a global audience, showing off how "her provocative sound is transcending language barriers."


title: Lexie Liu

text: Her debut EP released in February 2019 was highly recommended, "with a feature from Killy on Outta Time, plus new singles Sleep Away, Hat Trick and Nada, the eight-tracker is an impressive bilingual project showcasing the Changsha born and raised artist’s skills across rap, R&B vocals and production."


title: Lexie Liu

text: American fashion and culture magazine "Flaunt" also made a praising comment on Lexie's debut EP "2030", which is said to "narrates her life and journey within music; manifesting her inner-psyche through dream-like vocals and vibrant musical films. Dynamic in all aspects, Lexie holds a promising trajectory in the years to come."


title: David West (basketball)

text: David Moorer West (born August 29, 1980) is an American former professional basketball player who played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the New Orleans Hornets, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors. He played college basketball for the Xavier Musketeers, earning national college player of the year honors from the Associated Press (AP) and United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) as a senior in 2003. West was a two-time NBA All-Star (2008 and 2009) and a two-time NBA champion (2017 and 2018).


title: David West (basketball)

text: West attended Garner Magnet High School in Garner, North Carolina and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. As a senior in 1998–99, he earned first-team all-state honors playing for Hargrave.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In his freshman season at Xavier, West was named to the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team after leading the A-10 in rebounding (9.1) and finishing fourth on the Musketeers in scoring (11.7).


title: David West (basketball)

text: In his sophomore season, West led Xavier in scoring (17.8 ppg), rebounding (10.9 rpg, tops in A-10 and fourth nationally) and blocks (2.1 bpg). He recorded five 20-point, 20-rebound games throughout the 2000–01 season as he earned his first A-10 Player of the Year award.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In his junior season, West was named the A-10 Player of the Year and the league's Defensive Player of the Year, while also winning A-10 Tournament MVP honors. He averaged 9.8 rebounds (26th in nation) and 2.5 blocks (22nd in nation) per game, and recorded the first triple-double in school history with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against Long Island University.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In his senior season, West garnered two of the five major college basketball Player of the Year honors, being named AP National Player of the Year and National Player of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association. He became the first three-time Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, and was named first-team All-America by the Associated Press in 2002–03. In addition, he became just the third player in Xavier history to surpass 2,000 points and only the second to eclipse 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, joining Tyrone Hill.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In October 2007, "Sports Illustrated" released "Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book", which featured West on its NCAA All-Decade Team for the decade beginning in 2000. He was joined by Connecticut's Emeka Okafor and three Duke players, Jay Williams, J. J. Redick and Shane Battier.


title: David West (basketball)

text: West was drafted by the New Orleans Hornets with the 18th overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft. After recording modest production in his first two seasons, in 2005–06, West enjoyed a breakthrough as he averaged 17.4 points and 7.4 rebounds with a .512 FG% in 74 games. That year, he finished second in the voting for the NBA Most Improved Player Award, behind Boris Diaw of the Phoenix Suns. He also saw some time at center, due to the team's lack of a true big man and demonstrated an ability to perform under pressure, as he converted three game-winning jump shots.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In 2006–07, West ended the season averaging 18.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. Despite missing 30 games due to an elbow injury, West recorded five games of 30 or more points and 13 games of 20 or more points.


title: David West (basketball)

text: West again increased his statistical production in 2007–08, and was selected to his first NBA All-Star Game as a reserve, along with teammate Chris Paul. Paul later stated that he would rather not play with a power forward in the league other than West, because "he's not in it for the spotlight, all he cares about is getting buckets [scoring]." West reinforced his desire to be a team player in a 2008 postseason interview, saying that he does not care about being overlooked but would rather "play and be as effective as possible" when he is out on the court.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In 2008–09, West repeated as an all-star and posted a new career high by scoring 21.0 points per game.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On March 25, 2011, during one of the Hornets' last games of the season against the Utah Jazz, West came down awkwardly after a dunk. The event occurred with 22.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter. West tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and was ruled out for the rest of the season.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On January 12, 2013, West recorded his first career triple-double with 14 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in the 96–88 win over the Charlotte Bobcats.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On July 10, 2013, West re-signed with the Pacers to a three-year, $36.6 million contract. In June 2015, he opted out of his contract with the Pacers to become a free agent.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On July 17, 2015, West signed with the San Antonio Spurs. He made his debut for the Spurs in the team's season opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder on October 28, recording 8 points and 2 rebounds off the bench in a 112–106 loss. On January 6, 2016, West, starting in place of LaMarcus Aldridge, recorded season-highs of 18 points and 13 rebounds in a 123–98 win over the Utah Jazz, helping the Spurs extend its franchise-record home winning streak to 30 straight regular-season games dating to 2014–15.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On July 9, 2016, West signed with the Golden State Warriors. West emerged as a key bench player for the Warriors, particularly for his skilled passing abilities. Throughout January and February 2017, West missed 14 games with a non-displaced fracture in his left thumb. On March 29, 2017, West recorded a season-high 15 points and a game-high plus-23 in a large comeback win against the San Antonio Spurs. The Warriors finished the season as the first seed in the West with a 67–15 record. Following a 129–115 victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals over the Spurs, the Warriors were undefeated in the first three playoff series, reaching their third straight NBA Finals series. West played in every playoff game, as the Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–1 in the 2017 NBA Finals. The Warriors' 16–1 playoff record was the best ever postseason winning percentage in NBA history.


title: David West (basketball)

text: On July 25, 2017, after winning his first championship ring, West re-signed with the Warriors for one more year, with expectations to retire after the 2017–18 season. On January 8, 2018, in a 124–114 win over the Denver Nuggets, West became the 127th player in NBA history to play in 1,000 regular-season games. After reaching that milestone, he noted that he might consider signing again for the 2018–19 season, saying, "It all depends on how my body feels. Right now I feel good." After winning his second NBA Championship, West announced his retirement from the NBA after 15 seasons on August 30, 2018.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In November 2018, West became the first Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Historical Basketball League (HBL), a college basketball league set to launch in 2020. The HBL later changed its name to The Professional Collegiate League, with West explaining that the organization produces a more equitable system to "challenge the exploitation at the collegiate basketball level. ... Predominantly young black men, working, not being paid for their labor, and that labor being directly, monetarily beneficial for everyone but them."


title: David West (basketball)

text: West is the son of Amos and Harriet West. He and his wife Lesley have one daughter, Dasia, and one son, David Benjamin.


title: David West (basketball)

text: West is very interested in education, "black history, philosophy and various societal issues". He also loves to make mixtapes for his teammates, saying that it is a healthy habit that keeps him "in the house and off [his] feet".


title: David West (basketball)

text: In mid-2019, West appeared as a panelist and commentator on "The Young Turks" political news program to discuss Juneteenth.


title: David West (basketball)

text: In a July 2020 interview with "Black Agenda Report", West lamented the lack of understanding about China among Americans and denounced anti-China foreign policy hawks as "warmongers." Regarding the NBA's rift with China following Daryl Morey's tweet supporting the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, West stated that the Hong Kong issue is more complicated than how it is portrayed in the American media, and that he contacted NBA players to caution them about being used as political pawns against China, stating: "I got on the phone with a bunch of NBA guys, and I was like 'Don't let them pull you into this bullshit, because it's the Iraq war-, weapons of mass destruction-type propaganda again." Regarding the manner in which China is presented in the American media, West stated: "As people in the world, as Americans and people in American society, we have been misled."


title: David West (basketball)

text: Concerning American politics, West expressed support for Medicare for All and stated that American society needs a fundamental restructuring in order to combat police brutality, food deserts, and discrimination against black people in the healthcare industry. He stated that America has an "imperial lust that we haven't been able to get rid of," adding that "it has put us behind other nations in the fact that nations are united internally against the imperial wishes of the United States." West praised China for its improvements in poverty elimination, education, and life expectancy, and stated that China has "built their society in a way to defend itself against the constant imposition of Western imperialism. And in the midst of all of that, they have still been able to eke out some of the greatest advancements in human history. ... They've done it without war, they've done it without invasion, they've done it without bombing and blowing people up." He elaborated further that China demonstrates "there could be a functioning society outside of the control of the Western imperial power structure."


title: Soko (singer)

text: Stéphanie Alexandra Mina Sokolinski (born 26 October 1985), and known professionally as Soko (stylized as SoKo), is a French singer, songwriter, actress and dancer. She has been active since 2002. Soko released her debut single "I'll Kill Her" in 2007. It achieved airplay success in several European countries as well as Australia, being the No. 1 song on the Danish version of iTunes and peaking at No. 3 on the Denmark music charts. It was included on her first EP "Not Sokute" (2007). Her debut studio album "I Thought I Was an Alien" was released in 2012 and contains the single "We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow", which peaked at number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Ensuing years saw the releases of her second and third studio albums "My Dreams Dictate My Reality" (2015) and "Feel Feelings" (2020).


title: Soko (singer)

text: As an actress, Soko began appearing in a number of French productions in the early 2000s and earned a César Award for Most Promising Actress nomination for her role in the film "In the Beginning" (2009). She won the Courage in Acting Award at the Women Film Critics Circle Awards and the Best Actress award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival for her role as Augustine in the film of the same name (2012). She later appeared in the short film "First Kiss" (2014), which featured "We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow" and contributed to the song's chart success. Her role as Loie Fuller in "The Dancer" (2016) earned her Best Actress nominations at the César and Lumières Awards.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Sokolinski was born in Bordeaux, France to a Russian-Polish father and a French-Italian mother. She has used the nickname Soko as long as she can remember. Soko left home at 16, quit school and moved to Paris to start acting classes with Eva Saint-Paul where she studied for one year; she then resumed her education at several different schools, but quickly became tired of it and dropped out. She later appeared in several French films and began to write songs.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In 2007, Sokolinski achieved a hit single in Denmark with a personal anecdotal song, "I'll Kill Her", after the radio program The Black Boy Scouts began to promote it. The song reached number one on the chart of the Danish version of the iTunes Store and was the number one song in rotation on radio. The song is also a hit in Australia, being played on high rotation on Triple J radio; it later placed number nine in the Triple J Hottest 100 2007 music poll. The song was also popular in Belgium being played by Studio Brussel, Radio 1 and Pure FM, and in The Netherlands, being picked up by 3FM radio station. In October 2007 her music was featured in Stella McCartney's fashion show in Paris. She toured in the UK in late 2007 supporting M.I.A. on the KALA Tour. Since early 2008 she has also been played in Germany by 1LIVE, first only at night in 1Live Plan B but later, due to high demand, throughout the whole day.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Sokolinski has self-released one EP "Not Sokute", and collaborated with The Go! Team and Cornershop, the latter on a song called "Something Makes You Feel Like". She has her own record label called Babycat Records and is signed to Because Music in France.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In 2010, her song "I'll Kill Her", was sampled by Cee Lo Green on his Stray Bullets mixtape under the track of the same name.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In 2011, she wrote a song and featured in the animated short film "Mourir Auprès De Toi", which was co-written and directed by Spike Jonze.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In 2014, Soko's song "We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow" was featured in Tatia Pilieva's short video "First Kiss". She was also one of the video's twenty subjects. After "First Kiss" went viral on YouTube, the song debuted at number 9 in the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on Billboard's Streaming Songs chart.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In March 2014, Soko appeared in the music video for the song "Jealous" by Canadian electro-funk band Chromeo.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In 2015 We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow was also used in an episode of the American TV series - Forever.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Her second studio album, "My Dreams Dictate My Reality" was released in March 2015, its first single "Who Wears the Pants??" was released on 7 January. The "Sonic Seducer" wrote that the album was darker than the previous releases and called it a "female version of early The Cure discs".


title: Soko (singer)

text: Soko collaborated with The Brian Jonestown Massacre on a song called "Philadelphie Story" for their album "Musique de Film Imaginé", released in April 2015.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Sokolinski has had sold-out concerts in Scandinavia, Britain, and Australia. She performed at the Falls Festival at the end of 2008, the Southbound Festival and the Sunset Sounds Festival at the start of 2009. She has performed in the Los Angeles venues Henry Fonda, Troubadour, Bootleg Theatre, Spaceland, and Echoplex, and has played in support of Peter Doherty, Babyshambles, Kate Nash, Nouvelle Vague, Daniel Johnston, Foster The People, and Johnny Borrell. In San Francisco, she performed at Bottom of the Hill on 15 June 2012.


title: Soko (singer)

text: As a live performer, the singer acts unpredictably and never uses a set list; her backing band consists mostly of different friend-musicians at each show. She sometimes plays up to 3 hours by herself, in intimate and quiet venues.


title: Soko (singer)

text: On 19 January 2009 Sokolinski stated on her Myspace page that she was quitting music and is 'dead', writing that she was scared of the music industry and wanted to return to acting. Despite having recorded a double album in Seattle, she is not willing to release it.


title: Soko (singer)

text: In August of the same year, she declared that she was 'reborn' and writing songs such as "I'm So Ready to Be a Good Man" where she writes:


title: Soko (singer)

text: She later referred to the pressure of the music industry, before declaring that she was "having a new heart and being ready to be a new man".


title: Soko (singer)

text: In August 2011, Soko announced the release of her first album "I Thought I Was an Alien" on 6 February 2012, on her website www.s-o-k-o.com and a 17 August 2012 show at the Bootleg Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on Facebook. She released her first single on YouTube 1 August 2011 entitled "No More Home, No More Love". Two other singles were released "I Thought I Was An Alien" and "First Love Never Die".


title: Soko (singer)

text: In February 2010, Soko was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her role in "À l'origine" (English title "In the Beginning"), directed by Xavier Giannoli.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Soko is a vegan. This may be connected with the fact that she became straight edge when she was 18. She also refers to herself as a "white goth".


title: Soko (singer)

text: Soko has been identified as bisexual in 2012. In a March 2016 interview with "W Magazine", she stated, "I've always been open with my sexuality, meaning I don't really care about gender". She also confirmed her relationship with American actress Kristen Stewart in the same article. On 5 May 2016, "US Weekly" confirmed that Stewart and Soko had split after a few months of dating.


title: Soko (singer)

text: Soko identified herself as Queer and no longer bisexual in an interview for "The Nue Co." on 26 June 2020: "I called myself bisexual then. "Queer" wasn't yet an option. And slowly I realised that dating women made me feel so much more like myself, less oppressed, more equal and more empowered."


title: Soko (singer)

text: She confirmed in a Facebook post on 30 July 2018, that she was 25 weeks pregnant. In November 2018, she gave birth to son Indigo Blue Honey Sokolinski (named after a song by The Clean), whom she is raising with her partner, Stella Leoni. Australian singer Nick Cave is the Godfather of her son.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano City, located in the former Shinano Province, developed from the Nara period (AD 710 to 794) as a temple town ("monzen machi"). The city of Nagano is home to Zenkō-ji, a 7th-century Buddhist temple that is listed as a Japanese national treasure. Zenkō-ji was established in its current location in 642 AD. The location of Zenkō-ji is approximately 2 kilometers from the present-day central Nagano Station. During the Sengoku Period, the Age of Warring States, Nagano was the site of a series of battles, the Battles of Kawanakajima, between 1553 and 1564. During the Edo period (1603 and 1868), as the city developed, Nagano became an important post station (shukuba) on the Hokkoku Kaidō highway which connected Edo (present day Tokyo) with the Sea of Japan coast. Following the Meiji restoration, Nagano became the first established modern town in Nagano prefecture on April 1, 1897.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The city of Nagano and several surrounding communities hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics and the 1998 Winter Paralympics. Nagano City is an important historical location, an industrial center, as well as a travel destination and a center for accessing surrounding sightseeing spots, including Japan's "onsen"-bathing snow monkeys in Yamanouchi and world-class ski resorts of Hakuba, Shiga Kogen and Nozawaonsen - throughout the year.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano, along with the neighboring communities of Hakuba village, Nozawaonsen, Yamanouchi, Iizuna, and Karuizawa hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics from February 7 to February 22 and the Paralympics from March 5 to March 14. This was the third Olympic Games and second Winter Olympic Games to be held in Japan, after the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo (the first Winter Games ever held in Asia). As of 2019, Nagano was the southernmost host of the Winter Olympic Games. The Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon is held annually to commemorate the occasion.


title: Nagano (city)

text: One important legacy of the Games was an improved transportation network. In order to improve access to Nagano in advance of the Games, Nagano was linked to the high-speed "shinkansen" train network. The Nagano Shinkansen (now the Hokuriku Shinkansen) was inaugurated five months before the start of the Games, and during the Winter Olympics carried 655,000 passengers. In addition, both Nagano Station and Shinonoi Station were expanded, and Imai Station in the Kawanakajima area was built to access the Athletes village. Finally, the Nagano Expressway and the Jōshin-etsu Expressway were built in the Nagano region, and another 114.9 kilometers of roads within Nagano Prefecture were improved.


title: Nagano (city)

text: In addition to a transportation legacy, several world-class venues of the 1998 Winter Olympics were built, including M-Wave, Japan's first International Skating Union (ISU) standard indoor 400m double-track, and which happens to be one of the largest hanging wooden roof structures in the world. Finally, the Athletes Village beside the newly constructed Imai Station was built in advance of the Games by the city of Nagano as future public residential housing, and loaned to the Nagano Olympic Organizing Committee during the Games. A Media Village, composed of a four-block 10-12 storey apartment complex named Asahi Danchi, was built in the Asahi district of Nagano, across the street from the M-Wave. Asahi Danchi now includes private sector housing as well as housing for government employees.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano is located in north-central Nagano Prefecture, in the Nagano Basin ("Zenkoji Daira"), surrounding by mountains, near the confluence of the Chikuma River and the Sai River. The Sai River in Nagano should not be confused with the Sai River (Gifu) even though both rivers have the same "kanji" and reading, 犀川 (Saigawa). Other important rivers include the Susobana River, which originates in the Togakushi highland area; and the Torii River, which also originates in the Togakushi highland area. The Chikuma River is 367.0 km, with 29.5 km within the Nagano city limits; the Sai River is 157.7 km, with 44.2 km in Nagano; all 40.1 km of Susobana River are in Nagano City, and 10.4 km of the 34.8 km-long Torii River are in Nagano Myōkō-Togakushi Renzan National Park, Jōshin'etsu-kōgen National Park and Chūbu-Sangaku National Park are each partially located within Nagano City.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The present-day core city of Nagano includes the districts and former towns of Nagano, Shinonoi, Matsushiro, Wakaho, Kawanakajima, Kohoku, Naniai, Shinkomachi, Toyono, Togakushi, Kinasa, Ooka, Shinshushincho, Nakajo.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfa") that borders on a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfa"). Its location in a sheltered inland valley means it receives less precipitation than any part of Japan except Hokkaidō. The city receives heavy winter snow totaling from December to March, but it is less gloomy during these cold months than the coast from Hagi to Wakkanai.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The population of Nagano City has declined by 10,000 since the mid-1990s. As of April 1, 2019, the city had a total population of 376,080 people, made up of 193,982 women and 182,098 men in 160,625 households.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The growth and decline of the population within the various districts of Nagano City has been uneven over the past 70 years


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano is located in former Shinano Province and developed from the Nara period as a temple town at the gate of the famous Zenkō-ji, a 7th-century Buddhist temple which was relocated to this location in 642 AD.


title: Nagano (city)

text: In the southern section of Nagano City are a series of over 500 burial mounds at Ōmuro Kofun - a National historic site - dating from the 5th-8th centuries.


title: Nagano (city)

text: During the Sengoku period (c. 1467 – c. 1600), the area was hotly contested between the forces of the Uesugi clan based in Echigo Province and the Takeda clan based in Kai Province. The several Battles of Kawanakajima between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen were fought near here.


title: Nagano (city)

text: During the Edo period (1603 and 1868), much of the area came under the control of the Sanada clan based at Matsushiro Domain.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Following the Meiji restoration and the creation of the municipalities system on April 1, 1889, the modern town of Nagano was established. Nagano was elevated to city status on April 1, 1897.


title: Nagano (city)

text: During World War II, construction of the Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters as the last redoubt for the Japanese government following the projected American invasion of Japan was started in 1944, but was aborted in 1945 due to the end of war.


title: Nagano (city)

text: It was the first city founded in Nagano Prefecture and the 43rd city in Japan. Nagano hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, 1998 Winter Paralympics, and the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The city borders expanded on July 1, 1923, with the annexation of the neighbouring town of Yoshida and villages of Sarita, Miwa and Komaki.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city legislature of 39 members. The city and neighboring towns of Shinano, Iizuna, and Ogawa contribute 11 members to the 57-member Nagano Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, parts of Nagano can be found in one of two national districts, Nagano 1st District, which consists of Iiyama, Nagano (except for the recently annexed areas in District 2), Nakano, and Suzaka, as well as the Kamitakai, Shimominochi, and Shimotakai, and Nagano 2nd District, which consists of Matsumoto and Ōmachi, as well as the Higashichikuma, Kamiminochi, Kitaazumi, Minamiazumi, and several areas annexed into Nagano city, specifically the Sarashina as well as the former towns of Kinasa, Togakushi, and Toyono, in the lower house of the National Diet.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The gross value of goods and services of the economy in the city of Nagano in 2016 was estimated to be 4,438,580,046,000 yen, approximately US$40.5 billion. The largest percentage of this, 41.8%, was related to wholesale and retail, followed by healthcare and welfare, 25.9%, manufacturing, was 13.7%.


title: Nagano (city)

text: In 2016, Nagano City had 183,710 people in employment, with 21.1% of workers in wholesale or retail, 14.%% in healthcare and welfare, and 11.6% are in manufacturing. Other major employers include hotels and restaurants, 9% of employees, and construction industry, 7.9%; farming and forestry workers comprised 1.1% of the working population.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano is home to several private and public universities. Four of the ten universities recognized as major universities in the prefecture have campuses in the city, including the newest prefectural university, The University of Nagano.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano has 55 public elementary schools and 24 public middle schools operated by the city government, along with one public middle school operated by the national government and four private middle schools. The city has 12 public high schools operated by the Nagano Prefectural Board of Education, of which three are vocational, one public high school operated by the city government, and five private high schools. In addition, the city has four special education schools.


title: Nagano (city)

text: The city's main railway hub is Nagano Station. The coming of the 1998 Winter Olympics saw important changes to the transportation systems. Nagano Station and the smaller Shinonoi Station were expanded, and with the construction of the Athletes village for the Games in the Kawanakajima area, Imai Station was opened. Finally, the Hokuriku Shinkansen, initially named the "Nagano Shinkansen", connecting Nagano to Takasaki, Gunma where it merges with the Jōetsu Shinkansen and continues to Ōmiya Station and Tokyo Station, opened in 1997 to accommodate the expected increase in travelers to Nagano. This reduced by half the travel time between Tokyo and Nagano, to 79 minutes for 221 kilometers. As the main railway hub of the region, Nagano Station connects JR East, Shinano Railway, and Nagano Electric Railway in the city center. The JR trains carry 36,612 passengers per day with private rail carrying another 15,082 (and buses carry 20,229 passengers).


title: Nagano (city)

text: Buses for the Kawanakajima Bus and the Nagano Dentetsu Bus Co. service the city and surrounding areas, departing both Nagano Station and the Nagano Bus Terminal just west of the station. Local bus provider, Alpico Kōtsū, departs from a dedicated office across the street from the Zenkō-ji Exit of Nagano Station. Long-distance highway bus services depart from the East Exit of Nagano Station. There is also a daily bus to Narita Airport.


title: Nagano (city)

text: "Gururin-go" is a central district bus that runs in a circular loop from Nagano Station to Zennoji, passing Zenkō-ji, the Nagano Prefectural Office, and the Nagano Bus Terminal. Regardless of where you board or disembark, the fare is 150 yen.


title: Nagano (city)

text: Nagano is surrounded by mountains which boast excellent hiking, camping, and cycling. In addition, the city includes 46 national-designated cultural assets, 55 prefectural-designated cultural assets, 298 municipal-designated cultural assets, and finally 59 national-registered structures and 7 monuments in Nagano city.


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya? () is a romantic comedy directed by David Dhawan. It is the adaptation of the 1969 English film, "Cactus Flower". It stars Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen, Katrina Kaif and Sohail Khan, with Arshad Warsi, Beena Kak, Rajpal Yadav and Isha Koppikar in supporting roles. Arbaaz Khan made a guest appearance in the film. The film is about the relationships of a womanizing doctor who gets ultimately stuck between two women: a patient with suicidal tendencies and his nurse.


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: Samir (Salman Khan) is a very successful doctor: He not only looks after his patients' maladies, but he also looks after his female patients' hearts. Most women fall for him and his irresistible charms. The only person who has not fallen for him is his dutiful nurse Naina (Sushmita Sen).


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: Whenever a girl gets too close to Samir and starts talking about marriage, he sends her off by telling her he is already married. However, one day, he meets Sonia (Katrina Kaif), a beautiful young woman and Samir is smitten. He lies to her about having a wife, but the marriage is failing. When she learns of his 'wife', she wants to meet her. Samir introduces Naina, as well as her niece and nephew, as his wife and children.


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: Samir then arranges a fake divorce from his fake wife with the help of his best friend, lawyer Vicky (Arshad Warsi) who, despite having a steady girlfriend (Isha Koppikar), frequently flirts with Naina. To complicate things further, Samir's mother (Beena Kak) suddenly appears and doesn't want her son get divorced from Naina (when he isn't married to her in the first place). And then, there is Sonia's neighbour Pyare (Sohail Khan), who does not want Sonia to marry Samir: He wants Sonia for his own and she seems to like him, too.


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: The web of lies around everyone grows thicker and thicker, but finally, Samir is able to persuade Sonia to marry him. But before the altar, she makes him realize that she isn't the right wife for him; he is in love with Naina who has proved her love since she played along, pretending to be his wife. Samir agrees and rushes to the airport because Naina wants to escape to Canada, while Sonia marries Pyare. At the airport, Samir arrives in time: He convinces Naina to stay and she agrees.


title: Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?

text: The soundtrack consists of 7 original tracks and 4 remixes Composed By Himesh Reshammiya According to the Indian trade website "Box Office India", with around 1,250,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was one of The year's Best-selling.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The 2003–04 NBA season was the 63rd season for the Pistons, the 56th in the National Basketball Association, and the 47th in the Detroit area. Despite a solid year the previous season, the Pistons received the second overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft, which they obtained from the Memphis Grizzlies. They selected Darko Miličić as their top pick, but only used him as a reserve as he played limited minutes off the bench; he would later be regarded as one of the most suboptimal picks in the history of the NBA draft. After their first trip to the Conference Finals since 1991, the Pistons hired Larry Brown as head coach. Under Brown, the Pistons were once again a tough defensive team as they went on a 13-game winning streak between December and January. However, after a solid 33–16 start, they struggled in February losing six straight games. At midseason, the team acquired All-Star forward Rasheed Wallace from the Atlanta Hawks after playing just one game for them. With the addition of Wallace, the Pistons won 16 of their final 19 games finishing second in the Central Division with a 54–28 record. Ben Wallace was selected for the 2004 NBA All-Star Game. The Pistons went on to win the NBA Championship for the third time in franchise history, with Miličić being the youngest player to win said championship.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: In the first round of the playoffs, the Pistons defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in five games despite losing Game 2 at home. In the semifinals, they faced the New Jersey Nets who swept them in the Eastern Conference Finals in the previous year. The Pistons would win the first two games at home, but the Nets would put up a fight against the Pistons by winning 3 straight games to take a 3–2 series lead, which included a triple overtime win in Game 5 at The Palace. However, with the Pistons facing elimination, the Pistons were digging an early hole in Game 6, but the Pistons were able to erase a 13–2 deficit and never trailed for the remainder of the game as they would refuse to relinquish the lead to the Nets and win Game 6 81–75. In Game 7, the Pistons stingy defense held Jason Kidd to 0 points to defeat the Nets 90–69 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they defeated the top-seeded Indiana Pacers in a defensive six game series to earn their first appearance in the NBA Finals since 1990. In the Finals, the Pistons would pull off one of the greatest upsets in NBA history by defeating the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers four games to one, winning their third overall championship and first since 1990. Chauncey Billups was named Finals MVP.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The Finals were played using a 2-3-2 site format, where the first two and last two games are held at the team with home court advantage. This was only used in the Finals, all other playoff series are held in a 2-2-1-1-1 format (the team with home court advantage starts).


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The Lakers had a lineup of stars such as Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O'Neal – their offensive capability was expected to overpower Detroit's defensive-based gameplan.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: Payton and Malone also added to the publicity of the Finals. Perennial All-Stars who had both previously reached the Finals, Payton had led the Seattle SuperSonics there in 1996, while Malone had led the Utah Jazz there in 1997 and 1998. However, Michael Jordan and the Bulls denied their championship rings a total of three times. By the time of Jordan's retirement in 2003, the two veterans were aged and failed to lead their teams deep into the playoffs. Thus, this Finals series was seen as the last chance for two of the greatest players in NBA history to finally become NBA champions (Later on, Malone retired while Payton became a champion as a key bench player for the Miami Heat).


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: Considered to be a stunning upset by most of the NBA world, the Detroit Pistons managed to defeat the Lakers with imposing defense. Defensively clamping down on everyone but Bryant and O'Neal, the Pistons managed to hold everyone else to a total of 16 points.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The Pistons trailed the Lakers 41–40 at halftime, but a 10–4 surge capped by Billups's 3-pointer gave the Pistons the lead. O'Neal's foul trouble furthered the scoring gap, with the Pistons leading by 13 points early in the fourth quarter.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The second game was close throughout the first half, but in the third quarter Detroit would score 30 points, cutting the deficit 68–66. However, at the end of the fourth quarter, Kobe Bryant's 3-point shot at 2.1 seconds to go would tie the game at 89–89. The Lakers and Pistons would then go to overtime, with the Lakers outscoring the Pistons 10–2.


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: The Pistons beat Los Angeles by 20 in their first NBA Finals appearance together at The Palace of Auburn Hills since 1989 to take a 2–1 lead in the series. The 68 points scored by the Lakers set a (post-shot clock) franchise record for the fewest points scored in a Finals game. (Even Jay Leno was upset, saying in his "Tonight Show" monologue: "68 points? 68 is a great score...if you're playing "golf"!")


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: In Game 5, the Pistons won their first championship since 1990, and Larry Brown finally won a title as an NBA head coach. The Pistons defense had overcome the high-scoring Laker offense, winning the game by 13, winning the series 4-1, and also ending a long Laker dynasty that lasted for many years. The game saw the end of Phil Jackson's first run as the coach (he returned for the 2005-06 season), and saw O'Neal, Payton, and Malone's last games in Laker uniforms (O'Neal and Payton were both acquired by the soon-to-be NBA Champions Miami Heat and Malone retired).


title: 2003–04 Detroit Pistons season

text: As a result of their incredible defensive dominance, the 2004 Pistons set a number of notable shot-clock era (1955–Present) defensive Playoff records


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Jacob Shmuel Boteach ( ; born November 19, 1966) is an American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, author, and television host. Boteach is the author of 31 books, including the best seller "Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy", and "Kosher Jesus". For two seasons he hosted the prime time television series "Shalom in the Home", which was one of TLC's highest-rated shows. His outspokenness has earned him praise and criticism. "The Washington Post" referred to him as "the most famous rabbi in America", "Newsweek" named him one of the 10 most influential rabbis in the United States, and "The Jerusalem Post" named him one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach was born in Los Angeles, California. He grew up there and in Miami, Florida, and was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish home. He was the youngest of five children. His father Yoav Botach (without the "e") had been born the second child in a family of 13 in Iran in 1937, and grew up a Jewish boy fighting local Muslim anti-semites; he later lived in Israel, before coming to the United States. Boteach's mother Eleanor was an American tourist when she met his father in Israel. Boteach's parents divorced when he was eight years old; for his bar mitzvah present, he told his parents that he wanted them to reunite.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: He attended a Chabad (Lubavitch) camp, and fell in love with Judaism. The Lubavitcher Rebbe became his patron, and at age 13 Boteach joined the Chabad movement (a Hasidic philosophy that traces back 250 years to Lubavitch, Russia). At age 14, he decided he wanted to become a rabbi, to help heartbroken people. He studied at Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy and at a series of yeshivas in Los Angeles, New York, and Jerusalem, Israel (for three years at Torat Emet Yeshiva).


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach was ultimately chosen to be one of ten Chabad students sent to Sydney, Australia, to start a yeshiva. In Sydney he met the parents of his future wife, Debbie. Boteach met her when he was 21 years old, and they married in Sydney in 1988. He then returned to New York, and took "semicha" (rabbinical ordination) in 1988.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: By 2019, Boteach and his Australian wife Debbie had nine children; six of them were born in England. They resided in Englewood, New Jersey.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 1988, Boteach was sent at age 22 by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as "the Rebbe", as a Chabad-Lubavitch "shaliach" (emissary) to Oxford, England, where he served as rabbi to Oxford University's students for 11 years. During that time, he founded the Oxford University L'Chaim Society (in Hebrew, "L'Chaim" means "To Life"). The society grew to be the second-biggest student organization ever in Oxford, with a membership that included over 5,000 non-Jews. It attracted star speakers from politics, arts, and culture, including six Israeli prime ministers, former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, singer Boy George, football player Diego Maradona, and actor Jon Voight.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: The society's members included American Baptist Rhodes Scholar, and future US Senator, Cory Booker serving as the group's co-president, Italian journalist and future United Nations official Maurizio Giuliano serving as speaker coordinator and treasurer, and American Mormon and future president of Coastal Carolina University Michael Benson also serving as an officer of the society. Future Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti was also a member of the society. Some Orthodox patrons became concerned about the percentage of non-Jewish members, and after Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson died in 1994, Chabad UK leadership asked Boteach to remove non-Jewish students from the society; others wanted Boteach to exclude gay students. Boteach refused on both counts, saying the Rebbe had loved non-Jews and regularly reached out to them; Boteach then changed the L'Chaim Society from a student society into an independent organization.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Later in 1994, after Boteach refused to cancel a speaking event featuring Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he and Chabad split over the issue. Lubavitch leadership objected to the Prime Minister speaking, because Rabbi Schneerson before he died had opposed Rabin's peace deal proposal. After Boteach defied the suspension order, he was summoned to attend a beth din hearing at the Lubavitch World Headquarters. Boteach later confirmed that he was involuntarily terminated by Chabad—but said he still loved Chabad, and was raising his children in the Chabad tradition.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Excerpts from his best seller "Kosher Sex" were serialized in "Playboy" in 1998. Boteach at the time was the leader of Shabbat services at an Orthodox Willesden synagogue in north London, where attendance had more than doubled after his arrival. He resigned from his role at the synagogue. While he had received the support of England's Chief Rabbi, whose office issued a statement saying Boteach was an "imaginative talent... prepared to take risks in order to communicate an authentic Jewish message to a new generation," Boteach wanted to "spare Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks problems with his rabbinate and the London Beit Din" according to media reports.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 1999, the British government's Charity Commission raised concerns over payments made by the L'Chaim Society. In September, the Charity Commission temporarily froze the Society's bank accounts as a "temporary and protective measure", citing concerns about "the application and control" of the charity's funds -- however, the Charity Commission released the funds three months later, in December. The Society had made payments on a north London home in which Boteach lived. L’Chaim Society officials explained that the payments had been made only after the Society had consulted with and followed the legal advice of charity experts at a top London law firm. The rabbi said: "This is a totally normal process in the United States." In the immediate wake of the announcement, he was banned from speaking at the New West End Synagogue by Chief Rabbi Sacks. The Charity Commission later found no evidence of wrongdoing, but determined that the mortgage payments were "difficult, if not impossible, to justify" under British law. Boteach reportedly repaid the £150,000 to the trustees, and the issue was resolved with Boteach being cleared.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2000, Boteach won the "Preacher of the Year" Award, out of all faiths in Britain, from "The Times" in London. "The Jewish Chronicle" described him as "the United Kingdom's most high-profile rabbi". Boteach was listed in the top 10 on "Newsweek"s "Top 50 Rabbis in America" in 2007 (when it described him as "the most famous rabbi in America"), ninth in 2008, seventh in 2009, and sixth in 2010. "The Washington Post" referred to him as "the most famous rabbi in America," and "The Jerusalem Post" named him one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2013, Boteach was the commencement speaker for Southern Utah University, which granted him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: He has attracted both praise and criticism from fellow rabbis during his career. For example, after the release of his book "Kosher Jesus", Rabbi Israel Zoberman wrote that Boteach "offers a well-written scholarly volume that is far from dry and is accessible to all, one that both honors and is critical of [Christians and Jews]," and Israeli-American Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews praised it as "courageous and thought-provoking". Similarly, Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel, while noting what Boteach could have added to his book to deepen it, concluded that it was a bold book and that he admired the courage of a Hassidic rabbi wishing: "to talk about Jesus in a manner that is respectful and kind. This is quite a rarity—especially when you consider the animus that most Hassidic and Haredi Jews feel toward Jesus... All in all I admire his ... willingness to talk about a subject that has remained a forbidden topic of discussion in Jewish circles of all denominations... one can argue that Shmuley's "Kosher Jesus" should serve as a meaningful first step for many Jews wishing to promote a more truthful and meaningful dialogue with the Christian community." But in contrast,


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Jacob Immanuel Schochet, a Canadian Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, was fiercely critical, deeming the book to be heretical and asserting that it "poses a tremendous risk to the Jewish community," and saying that "it is forbidden for anyone to buy or read this book," and it "does more to enhance the evangelical missionary message" than any other book. A Chicago Chabad rabbi—who admitted that he had only read the title of the book—wrote an op-ed in which he asserted on that basis alone that the book was "apikorus" (heresy) and must be treated as such. In reaction, Australian Orthodox Chabad Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, while agreeing with some of what Boteach said and disagreeing with other points, wrote: "The suggestion that [Boteach] is a heretic is simply ludicrous". Rabbi Michael Samuel of Temple Beth Sholom in Chula Vista, California, opined: "Lubavitchers do not want to know anything about Jesus." Boteach, for his part, said: "We are the People of the Book. We aren't the people who ban books."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach is noted for his flamboyance and self-promotion. In an article in "The Atlantic", Jeffrey Goldberg referred to him as the "Baal Shem Tov of self-promotion". While promoting his book at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, explaining why he was there he said: "God gave 10 commandments at Sinai, and the 11th commandment, which they expunged but which has come down orally, is 'Thou shalt do anything for publicity and recognition.'" He later described the comment as merely a sarcastic remark.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2006 and 2007, Boteach hosted the one-hour prime time television series "Shalom in the Home". The series, which ran for two seasons on the TLC network, was a reality show in which Boteach counseled dysfunctional families and gave advice to struggling couples about their relationships and parenting. "Shalom in the Home" attracted almost 700,000 viewers per episode, and was one of the cable network's highest-rated shows. In 2007 he wrote a book with the same name, based on the TV series. That year, The National Fatherhood Initiative gave him its highest award for his efforts in the television series. After the series ended, Boteach remained in contact with the families, counseling them, and having them over to his home.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2014, Boteach was featured in an episode of the Sundance Channel's "Dream School" reality television series. It was a non-fiction original series, which introduced troubled teen high school dropouts to mentors, in order to inspire the teenagers to turn their lives around.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: On television, he has also made guest appearances on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "The Dr. Phil Show", "Larry King Live", "Dateline NBC", "The Today Show", "The Howard Stern Show", "The View", "The O'Reilly Factor", and "The Dr. Oz Show".


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: On radio, Boteach hosted a weekly nationally syndicated radio program on WABC called "The Shmuley Show". It aired on Sunday evenings from 7-9 p.m. He was also host of his own daily talk radio show on the "Oprah and Friends" network on her XM radio channel.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach has written syndicated columns for both "The Huffington Post" and "The Jerusalem Post". He is also an op-ed contributor to "The Wall Street Journal", "The Washington Post", and other newspapers.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In March 2000, Boteach entered into an agreement with MatchNet (the creator of online dating site Jdate) to become its spokesman for three years, for an annual salary and stock options. After its initial public offering, the company sought to renegotiate his contract at a lower salary. According to his lawsuit, when he refused to renegotiate his agreement he was terminated right before his stock options vested. He claimed that MatchNet hired him to add legitimacy to its public offering, but never intended to fulfill its promises.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In the late 1990s, Boteach became a friend, close confidant, and unofficial spiritual advisor to singer Michael Jackson. Jackson and his children joined the Boteach family at their home on many Friday nights for Sabbath dinner, and Jackson gave the family a dog as a present. Boteach was a vocal supporter of Jackson and was initially "dismissive of suggestions that Jackson's relationships with children have been anything other than wholesome. "Why would anyone believe those charges? They said anyone who spends that amount of time with kids has to be sick. Well, that's not an indictment of Michael Jackson, that's an indictment of our society!" He said further: "I was friendly with Michael for a year before anyone knew about it. I did my own investigation. He never had sex with the child he made the settlement with, and there are no others."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach served as president for the Heal the Kids offshoot (established by Boteach and Jackson in 2000) of the Heal the World Foundation charity founded by Jackson to encourage parents to spend more time with their children, and to help children threatened by war and disease by providing them with medicine and food. Jackson said: "Our goal is simple: to recreate the parent-child bond, renew its promise, and light the way forward for all the beautiful children who are destined one day to walk this earth." Heal the Kids was linked to the L'Chaim Society. Gossip blogger Roger Friedman claimed that donations to Heal the Kids were actually going to L’Chaim Society, and that Denise Rich who donated $100,000 by check to the L'Chaim Society was unaware that the funds would go to Boteach's organization; Rich declined to comment. Responding to the claims, Boteach accused Friedman, who was fired from Fox News in 2009, of holding a bias against Jackson, and having poor journalism ethics, saying: "Roger Friedman is the foremost Michael Jackson hater on planet earth. He was fired by Fox News for being an unscrupulous reporter."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach later disavowed his relationship with Jackson. The two had a falling-out in 2002, after Jackson did not stick to the recovery programs they had worked out, which included his waking up at a reasonable hour and not being alone with children other than Jackson's own kids, and after Jackson's second arrest on charges of sexually abusing a child. Jackson reportedly kept an "enemy list" after their relationship ended on which Boteach appeared, along with Uri Geller, Gloria Allred, Tommy Mottola, Tom Sneddon, and Janet Arvizo.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: After Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication in 2009, Boteach published "The Michael Jackson Tapes". The book was drawn from 30 hours of interviews Boteach had with Jackson that were taped with Jackson's approval, and that Jackson intended to be for a book. In the tapes, Jackson spoke of his childhood scars and demanding father, the price of fame, his friendships with Madonna and Brooke Shields, married life, his relationship with children, his shyness, his fear of growing old, spirituality, and racism. Boteach wrote in the prologue: "This book is being published because it was Michael Jackson's desperate wish that it be so". "Vibe" wrote: "It's perhaps Michael's most lucid look at the man in the mirror," and "The San Diego Tribune" wrote: ""The Michael Jackson Tapes" breaks little in the way of new ground but the book ... provides firsthand detail about the performer's excesses and obsessions." At the same time, the publication was criticized by Nathan Rabin, writing for "The A.V. Club", who opined that the book was the "worst kind of posthumous cash-in". Boteach published a second related book in 2010, entitled: "Honoring the Child Spirit: Inspiration and Learning from Our Children, in conversation with Michael Jackson".


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach is the founder and executive director of "The World Values Network" (also known as "This World: The Values Network"), a Jewish pro-Israel non-profit organization that he established in 2007. The mission of the organization is to "disseminate universal Jewish values in politics, culture, and media". The organization is founded on the belief that Judaism, with its emphasis on perfecting the world and celebrating life, can help America address some its greatest challenges, such as high divorce rates, teenager alienation, depression, and increasing ignorance and materialism.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: The organization holds an annual "Champions of Jewish Values International Awards" gala. The gala has honored Senators Cory Booker (D) and Ted Cruz (R), Representatives Ron DeSantis (R; now a Governor), Tulsi Gabbard (D), and Ed Royce (R), Ambassadors Ron Dermer, David M. Friedman, and Georgette Mosbacher, television personalities Steve Harvey, Caitlyn Jenner (also a former Olympic gold medalist), Dr. Oz, and Judge Jeanine Pirro, actors Pamela Anderson, Ben Kingsley, Sean Penn, Geza Rohrig, and Jon Voight, journalists Ken Kurson and Bret Stephens (a Pulitzer Prize winner), Dr. Miriam Adelson and businessman Sheldon G. Adelson, Hatzalah founder Eli Beer, Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman, former heavyweight champion of the world boxer Evander Holyfield, President Kagame of Rwanda, Reverend Bernice King, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, Member of the Knesset Amir Ohana, musician and activist Yoko Ono, Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi, human rights activist John Prendergast, businessman Robert F. Smith, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, singer Dionne Warwick, Nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel, and others who have promoted Israel and Jewish values.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: The organization collects donations and has funded newspaper advertisements to draw attention to anti-Semitism and to anti-Israel bias. It has placed ads in opposition to Hamas, Secretary of State John Kerry's work towards the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's comments on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Natalie Portman for canceling an appearance at an award ceremony in Israel, and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar for anti-Semitic remarks.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2015, US National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for agreeing to speak to Congress about Iran's nuclear program without coordinating with the Obama administration. The World Values Network placed an ad in "The New York Times" in response that read "Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide", and said that her action had "injected a degree of partisanship" that is "destructive of the fabric of the relationship" between the US and Israel. The ad faced widespread criticism by Jewish organizations. Boteach apologized, saying that the disagreement was over policy, and he did not intend to make a personal attack. Speaking to CNN, he said the purpose of the ad was to bring attention to his perception that the United States government has ignored genocides in the past, and continues to do so.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2018, New Zealand singer Lorde cancelled a Tel Aviv concert in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The World Values Network placed an ad in response, calling her a “bigot”. The criticism was one of several denunciations from well-known Israelis and Zionist leaders of her cancellation, and the Zionist Federation of New Zealand and the Jewish Council of New Zealand were also critical of her, though the ad itself was met with a distancing by the council.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: On May 23, 2021, the organization ran a full-page "New York Times" ad calling on Dua Lipa, and Gigi and Bella Hadid, to condemn Hamas, because the terror group "calls for a second Holocaust" (quoting Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, which advocates that Moslems kill Jews). The ad also pointed to Lipa and Bella Hadid accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing", even as Jewish refugees were "savagely forced out of every Arab land, and Jews living in pre-state Israel ... were subjected to multiple Arab massacres and pogroms," and accused them of anti-Semitism for having "vilified the Jewish state". He called for them to consider condemning Hamas for its brutality toward women, tolerance for honor killings of young Palestinian girls, use of children as human shields for military stockpiles and rocket launch-pads, murders of LGBTQ Palestinians, and avoidance of fair elections "after fourteen autocratic years." Lipa rejected what she characterized as "the false and appalling allegations" and said that WVN used her name "shamelessly" to "advance their ugly campaign with falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations." Stop Antisemitism tweeted to Lipa in response: "Remember that [Instagram] story you shared calling Israelis ‘fake Jews’, and Hamas being an Israeli invention? We didn't... you're a pathetic liar."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: The "New York Daily News" reported on the organization's tax filing in 2009, two years after the organization's founding, and noted that it raised $651,000, and paid $638,000 in operating and administrative expenses combined (including a $229,000 salary for Boteach—up from $59,000 the prior year, and $70,000 in charitable disbursements). The organization paid Boteach a director salary of $330,371 in 2015. In 2018, Charity Navigator, a charity assessment organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the United States, evaluated the stability, efficiency, sustainability, accountability, and transparency policies of World Values Network to measure the charity's good governance and integrity, and gave World Values Network a score of 100 out of 100. At the time World Values Network had $1.3 million in total revenue, 76.11% of its revenue in 2016-18 was spent on program expenses (for a passing score, Charity Navigator looks for a ratio of 70% or more), only 22.9% on administrative expenses (Charity Navigator looks for administrative expenses to be under 30%), three of its four board of director members were independent (Charity Navigator looks for at least 50% independent directors), and it had an annual independent audit.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In his 2014 book "Kosher Lust", Boteach said that lust, rather than love, is the glue to a healthy marriage. The book's subtitle is "Love is not the Answer". He believes married couples should focus on having a strong sexual connection. Boteach writes of three "pillars of lust" that he believes ensure an exciting marriage: unavailability ("Eros thrives in the shadows"), mystery (keeping some things private), and sinfulness (being novel and risqué in couples' sex lives; "anything that makes you more hooked" is permissible in the bedroom). He expands upon his view, saying that the essence of lust is desire. "I want you; I can't live without you; my life is empty without you; I will forsake everything for you — the intensity, that passion. And I don't just mean physical lust, like lust for the body, because that wanes... I mean the natural gravitation of two energies — masculine to feminine, feminine to masculine." He also opines that of course one needs "respect, appreciation, compliments, shared values." But says that if one is in a marriage where one doesn't deeply desire the other person, "you are in a jail cell. It's a form of incarceration."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: He also says that the essence of lust and desire is "chosen," and that a woman - in particular - wants to feel chosen. He in addition is of the view that when men don't speak to their wives, which happens for a variety of reasons, that causes their wives to feel a great deal of pain.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: As to underpinnings of his views in Judaism, Boteach opines that all of the notable marriages in the Bible are lust relationships, rather than love relationships. He points out that Jacob waits seven years for Rachel but for Jacob it feels like just a few days, and that the first thing Rebecca does when she meets Isaac is put a veil over her face."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: He also points to the Bible's Song of Solomon, a poem that describes the yearning of a man for a woman: "Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies... Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, 'I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit'." He wrote that it is part of Jewish Talmudic law that a man must ensure that his wife reaches orgasm before he does.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach's book "Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy" (1988) was a best seller. The "Washington Post" referred to him as "Dr. Ruth with a yarmulke," and the British media called the book the "kosher Kamasutra". His philosophy is that "passionate lovemaking ... leads to intimacy" and is the foundation of a relationship. He opined: "Only sex has the capacity to bring in its wake an overwhelming tidal wave of positive emotion which makes us feel intensely good about each other ... which conversation can't do, which friendship can't do, which shared experiences can't do." He is also of the view that while one does not have to be religious to love sex, it helps, and while one does not have to be married to have great sex, it helps. He opined: "Couples should have the dirtiest sex where they can't control themselves, where the beast within is awakened. That's what passion is all about. In order to have that, you need a modest exterior. That is eroticism." To achieve that, he is in favor of anything that fans the spark between a married couple, including (when he is asked) oral sex and sex toys. At the same time, because he believes they distract or dull one's sexual edge, he is against the lights being on and masturbation. He is also of the view that we should refrain from sex before marriage, because it's bad sex.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: After "Kosher Sex" was excerpted in "Playboy", Boteach received two tickets in the mail for a big party at the Playboy Mansion, but his wife wagged her fingers at him and said: "No bunnies for you." Backstage at "The Today Show", he ran into former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who asked for a signed copy of the book. At the same time, the book caused a stir in the Orthodox community—even so, in the summer of 2012 it was the most checked-out non-fiction book in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which houses the center for Chabad Jewry in America.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: One of the rabbi's daughters, Chana Boteach, followed up on her father's theme years later. In 2019 when she was 28 years old she opened a boutique Kosher Sex shop in Tel Aviv (subsequently, she opened one in Jerusalem), and also began selling its products online. Kosher Sex sells items such as blindfolds, silk handcuffs, feathers, body jewelry, candles, nipple tassels, perfumes, oils, and vibrators. There are also games, in which couples toss dice and receive instructions as to what to do next. On the other hand, she also has boxes with Shabbat candles, which she hands out to women to encourage them to light candles on Friday night. She opined: "Nothing is vulgar." She calls the boutiques Kosher Sex because the purpose of the toys is to "help married couples create intimacy in a relationship... People marry and stay in a relationship for a long time. Aids can help people spice things up between them... You need to rediscover intimacy between two people, and to do that you must learn something new all the time, and these aids can help you do that." Asked whether she worried about getting rabbinic approval, she laughed and said: "My dad's a rabbi. I'll take his approval."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach wrote in a 2010 "Wall Street Journal" op-ed column on homosexuality that he does not deny that there is a biblical prohibition on male same-sex relationships, and a commandment for men and women to marry and have children. Still, he understands those in context. "There are 613 commandments in the Torah... So when Jewish gay couples tell me they have never been attracted to members of the opposite sex and are desperate alone, I tell them "You have 611 commandments left. That should keep you busy. Now, go create a kosher home ... you are His beloved children." Five years later he wrote that he believed in the equality of all of God's children, and has seen too much homophobia in his life. He believes that the biggest threat to marriage doesn't come from gay marriage, but heterosexual divorce, which he says afflicts half of marriages. He opposes government involvement at all in recognizing marriage, but supports state-sanctioned "civil unions" for all.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic, Boteach said "I utterly reject and find it sickening when people believe that this is some kind of punishment from God - that really upsets me." He also said that he found it: "very upsetting when religious leaders don't shut down their synagogues, churches, or mosques because they believe that prayer is more important than preserving life." At the same time, as his father died during the pandemic and his brother became sick with Covid, he wrote about the difficulty of dealing with those tragedies during the pandemic.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In 2008, he debated Douglas Jacoby and Shabir Ally, on The True Legacy of Abraham, and the next year he debated Douglas Jacoby on "Judaism & Christianity: Which is the Religion of Peace?" In 2008, he debated Michael Brown, a leader of the Messianic Jews, on whether belief in Jesus is compatible with Judaism, and in his book "Kosher Jesus" he depicts Jesus as "a Jewish patriot murdered by Rome for his struggle on behalf of his people." These positions drew opposition from Yitzchak Schochet, a British rabbi who was a rival of Boteach's, who called Boteach's attempts to reach out to Messianic Jews "self-delusional". Boteach is also of the view that while the Chabad movement's objective is to serve all Jews, its philosophy also extends to helping others become stronger in their respective religions.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In his 2012 book "Kosher Jesus", Boteach takes the position that Jesus was a wise and learned Torah-observant Jewish rabbi, and a beloved member of the Jewish community. At the same time, he writes Jesus despised the Romans for their cruelty, and fought them courageously. He states that the Jews had nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of Jesus, but rather that blame for his trial and killing lies with the Romans and Pontius Pilate. Boteach states clearly that he does not believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. At the same time, Boteach argues that "Jews have much to learn from Jesus - and from Christianity as a whole - without accepting Jesus' divinity. There are many reasons for accepting Jesus as a man of great wisdom, beautiful ethical teachings, and profound Jewish patriotism." He concludes by writing, as to Judeo-Christian values, that "the hyphen between Jewish and Christian values is Jesus himself."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach is supportive of Israel. He was critical of Obama-era American policy towards the country. Boteach argued that the Obama administration bullied Israel, and that U.S. Middle Eastern policy was "scandalous" and "disgusting". He is also supportive of Israeli settlements, including the Hebron settlement, the residents of which he characterizes as marked by a particular "warmth, friendliness and hospitality" and views as being "liberated from hatred". He also noted that the Jewish residents of Hebron are derisively described "as settlers — as if Jews living in their own ancient capital are newcomers." He was supportive of President Trump's Israel policies, and called him "the most pro-Israel president in history".


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach has argued in favor of infant male circumcision, defending the practice on religious grounds and health grounds, while contrasting it sharply with female circumcision. He said that to compare the excising of a male foreskin with the removal of a female clitoris is a lie, as "female circumcision is all about removing a woman's ability to experience pleasure during sex, and is a barbarous act of mutilation that has no corollary to its male counterpart." He said that "Judaism celebrates the sexual, intimate and erotic bond between husband and wife, and attempts to portray circumcision as a method of denying a man's sexual pleasure are ignorant."


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: He has also advocated in 2011 for the medical benefits of male circumcision reducing the transmission and incidence of HIV-AIDS, other STDs such as genital herpes and syphilis, urinary-tract infections, penile cancer, and other adverse health conditions, pointing to a report in the "British Medical Journal" .


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Discussing New Testament mention of male circumcision, Boteach noted that when Jesus is criticized for healing a crippled man on the Sabbath (John 5:1-47), Jesus quotes a legal precedent preserved later in the Talmud (Tractate Yoma) to prove that his action is justified, saying: "Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath?" (7:23 NIV).


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach has written op-eds in "The Wall Street Journal" and the "Huffington Post" denouncing legislation to limit male circumcision. The issue of the appropriateness of male circumcision remains a hotly debated topic.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach has been critical of pornography. In 2016, he co-authored a viral "Wall Street Journal" opinion piece with actress and former "Playboy" model Pamela Anderson, in which they called online pornography a "public hazard of unprecedented seriousness". The two called for a "sensual revolution" to replace "pornography with eroticism, the alloying of sex with love, of physicality with personality, of the body's mechanics with imagination, of orgasmic release with binding relationships." They later gave a joint lecture at Oxford University to over 1,000 people. Boteach observed: "It can be intimidating to talk about pornography and eroticism alongside an international sex symbol, but I think Pamela has handled it extremely well." The two also wrote a book together, "Lust for Love" (2018), about how meaningful, passionate sex has been declining, and calling for a new sensual revolution that emphasizes partners connecting in the bedroom. In 2001, he publicly debated pornography with Jewish Playmate Lindsey Vuolo.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach, a self-described social moderate, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in northern New Jersey in the 2012 elections. He became the first rabbi ever to run for the U.S. Congress as a Republican, and had he won he would have been the first rabbi in Congress. Referring to the 50% divorce rate in the United States as "an American tragedy that no one talks about," he supported making marriage and family counseling tax-deductible to help strengthen marriages and lower the nation's divorce rate. He also supported a federal school voucher system, lower taxes, a flat tax and simplification of the tax code, smaller government, and preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. He was staunchly pro-Israel, and anti-terrorism and Hamas. He received the endorsement of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: Boteach won the Republican primary for New Jersey's 9th congressional district seat in a three-way race on June 5. He received 57.9% of the vote, defeating Hector Castillo with 28.3% of the vote, and Blase Billack with 13.8% of the vote.


title: Shmuley Boteach

text: In the November general election he faced eight-term Democratic 8th District Representative and former mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, Bill Pascrell. Boteach gave a $250 donation to his opponent, because he wanted them to have a Friday night Shabbat dinner date together at his home to get to know each other as people before they were opponents, and he was hoping his donation would get Pascrell's attention after several unsuccessful attempts to arrange the dinner. Pascrell raised more money than any other congressional candidate in the state in 2012, $2.6 million, 10x what Boteach raised. Boteach lost in the overwhelmingly Democratic district, where Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3-to-1, by a margin of 73.6% to 25.4%. In his concession speech Boteach said: "He is now my Congressman. I pledge my complete support to him."


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, and is composed of over 16 million bricks. The building covers . Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas National Park, west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County, Florida, United States.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: In late December 1824 and early January 1825, about five years after Spain sold Florida to the United States for $5 million, U.S. Navy Commodore David Porter inspected the Dry Tortugas islands. He was on the lookout for a site for a naval station that would help suppress piracy in the Caribbean. Unimpressed with what he saw, he notified the Secretary of the Navy that the Dry Tortugas were unfit for any kind of naval establishment. He reported that they consist of small sand islands a little above the surface of the ocean, have no fresh water, scarcely enough land to place a fortification, and in any case are probably not solid enough to bear one.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: While Commodore Porter thought the Dry Tortugas were unfit for a naval station, others in the U.S. government thought the islands were a good location for a lighthouse to guide ships around the area's reefs and small islands. A small island called Bush Key, later called Garden Key, was selected as the site for the lighthouse, which became known as Garden Key Light. Construction began in 1825 and was completed in 1826. The lighthouse was constructed of brick with a whitewashed exterior. A small white cottage for the lighthouse keeper was constructed beside the lighthouse.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: In 1829, under recommendations from Commodore John Rodgers, the survey ship "Florida" stopped at the Dry Tortugas to evaluate the anchorage. Contrary to Commodore Porter's experience, Josiah Tattnall III was delighted with what he found. The Dry Tortugas, he reported, consisted of 11 small keys and surrounding reefs and banks, over which the sea broke. There was an outer and an inner harbor. The former afforded a safe anchorage during all seasons and was large enough to let a large number of ships ride at anchor. Of more importance, the inner harbor combined a sufficient depth of water for ships-of-the-line, with a narrow entrance of not more than . Tattnall noted that if a hostile power should occupy the Dry Tortugas, United States shipping in the Gulf would be in deadly peril, and nothing but absolute naval superiority could prevail. However, if occupied and fortified by the U.S., the Dry Tortugas would constitute the advance post for a defense of the Gulf Coast. Robert E. Lee, then a Captain in the U.S. army, shared this opinion and in February 1845 penned a letter to Thomas Blake (Commissioner of the General Land Office) recommending the reservation of the Dry Tortugas for military use. Capt. John G. Barnard then made a detailed reconnaissance in November 1844 and on 17 September 1845, the Dry Tortugas became a national military reservation.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: Construction of Fort Jefferson (named after the third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson) finally began on Garden Key in December 1846, under the supervision of 2nd Lt. Horatio Wright, after plans drawn up by Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs were approved in November. Meigs' plans were based on a design by Joseph Totten. Chief of Engineers Totten eventually visited the fort in 1855, accompanying Louis Agassiz.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: The new fort was built so that the existing Garden Key lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper's cottage were contained within the walls of the fort. The lighthouse continued to serve a vital function in guiding ships through the waters of the Dry Tortugas Islands until the current metal light tower was installed atop an adjacent wall of the fort in 1876. The original brick lighthouse tower was taken down in 1877.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: The design called for a two-tiered casemates in a six-sided outline, with two curtain walls measuring , and the other four measuring . Corner bastions, which are large projections designed to allow defensive fire along the faces of the walls they joined, contained gunrooms, gunpowder magazines and a granite spiral staircase. Each tier of casemates contained 150 guns, and another 150 were placed on top of the fort itself. The heavy guns were mounted inside the walls in a string of open casemates, or gunrooms, facing outward toward the sea through large openings called embrasures. The parade ground contained additional powder magazines, headquarters, a hospital, officer quarters and three large barracks.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: The Army employed civilian carpenters, masons, general laborers, and Key West slaves to help construct the fort. By August 1855, 233 white contract laborers were employed, though the slaves "... were the backbone of the labor gang ...," according to Albert Manucy. Bricks were provided by the Pensacola firm of Raiford and Abercrombie. In 1859, the scientist Joseph Bassett Holder assumed responsibility as the fort's physician.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: In order to support such a large population in an area lacking fresh water, an innovative system of cisterns was built into the walls of the fort. Sand-filled columns were placed at regular intervals in the inner walls, spanning their height from the roof to the foundation. The columns were intended to filter rainwater from the rooftop for long-term storage in a series of underground chambers. However, the rainwater dissolved salts in the sand, or the cisterns had not been made tight, making the water unfit for drinking, but usable for washing and cooking. Only the rainwater runoff stored under the parade ground was fresh for drinking. Two steam condensers distilled of sea water per day during the Civil War. The fort enjoyed "... much better water than we have had heretofore," which was stored in the parade ground cisterns.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: At the onset of the Civil War, 62 men of the Second U.S. Artillery Regiment, under the command of Major Lewis Golding Arnold, were moved to the fort, preventing it from falling into the hands of rebel forces. Capt. Meigs took over as the Superintending Engineer in 1860, and worked feverishly to improve the security and defenses so that the fort's heavy guns were first fired on 26 January 1861. The fort had a population of 168 persons at the time, including women and children.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: Two companies, 160 soldiers, of the 6th New York Zouaves arrived on 4 July 1861, under the command of Col. Bill Wilson. The 7th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry arrived in March 1862, under the command of Col. Haldimand S. Putnam, to relieve the Zouaves. The 90th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, under the command of Lt. Col. Louis W. Tinelli relieved the New Hampshire soldiers in June 1862. They were relieved by the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in December 1862. They were relieved in March 1864 by the 110th New York Volunteer Infantry.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: In September 1861, the first prisoner soldiers appeared, those sentenced by Courts-martial to confinement and hard labor for acts such as mutinous conduct. President Lincoln then substituted imprisonment on the Dry Tortugas, in lieu of execution, for those found guilty of desertion. By June 1863, only 22 black workers remained following the Emancipation Proclamation. By November 1863, the number of military convicts reached 214, meeting the demands for unskilled labor, and the ratio of soldier to prisoners was about four to one. In June 1864, the ratio was almost equal, with 653 soldiers and 753 convicts. In November 1864, only 583 soldiers guarded 882 prisoners and eight were able to escape.


title: Fort Jefferson (Florida)

text: On 24 July 1865 four special civilian prisoners arrived. These were Samuel Mudd, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlen, who had been convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd attempted to stowaway on a steam transport, when the 82nd U.S. Colored Troops relieved the 161st New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment on 25 September 1865. This led to his detention in the fort's "dungeon," over which were the words "Whoso entereth here leaveth all hope behind" (from Canto III of Dante's "Inferno"). Another state prisoner, Col. George St. Leger Grenfell arrived on 8 October 1865.