Jackson’s Jewish Ties Had Their Highs And Lows

(JTA) — Michael Jackson’s life was full of contradictions, and his relationship with Jews and the Jewish community was no exception.

Jackson asked to visit the Museum of Tolerance and its Holocaust exhibit one week before its Los Angeles opening in February 1993 and was crying when he left. But two years later he released a song that included lyrics offensive to some Jews.

In 1999, the King of Pop developed close ties with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Six years later, Jackson described two former Jewish business associates as “leeches.” That same year, 2005, he was seen wearing a red string on his wrist that is worn by kabbalah adherents.

Rabbi Boteach this week reminisced about his “warm relationship” with Jackson, who died June 25 in Los Angeles at the age of 50.

The two met in 1999 and became fast friends, touring together to promote the Heal the Kids campaign. “We used to have him over for Shabbat dinners,” recalled Rabbi Boteach. “At one point, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was visiting and I wanted Michael to meet him.”

Jackson’s entourage urged him not to meet with Sharon for fear of offending some of his fans, but the music icon ignored the advice and met with him, Rabbi Boteach said. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance, took Jackson on a two-hour tour of the museum. “When he left, Michael was crying, and he wrote me afterwards that he cried for weeks,” Hier recalled Monday.

Two years later Hier and Jackson corresponded again, but this time the tone was quite different. Jackson had just released an album featuring the song “They Don’t Care About Us,” with the lyrics “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/Kick me, kike me, don’t you black or white me.”

Hier fired off an angry letter to Jackson, who replied with a profuse apology, declaring, “I am committed to tolerance, peace and love.” The singer promised that an explanatory note would accompany future album sales.

Speculation is rife on whether custody of Jackson’s two older children will go to the pop star’s parents or the children’s Jewish mother.

Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s former nurse and his wife for three years, is the biological mother of Prince Michael I, 12, and Paris Michael Katherine, 11. Under Jewish law, the children are considered Jewish.

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