Madonna Criticized By Israeli Gays For Taking Part In Kabbalah Conference

 

“Confessions” tour mock crucifixion.  As Madonna sings the song, “Live to Tell” she is suspended from a large mirrored cross, complete with a crown of thorns, as images of the impoverished flash on giant video screens. The imagery is unquestionably interpreted as being Jesus. In fact, Rolling Stone magazine’s review of the opening proclaims in the headline: “In her first trek in two years, material girl plays Jesus, pole dancer, jockey and dominatrix.”  (from The Watchman Fellowship “Madonna, It’s Not Your Cross to Bear”)

365 Gay.com | Sep 14,  2007

Some Israeli gays are criticizing Madonna for taking part in a conference in Tel Aviv put on by Kabbalah when Israeli leaders of the mystic Jewish sect  have been vocal in their opposition to homosexuality.

Mainstream Judaism has been critical of the Kabbalah movement but Orthodox rabbis embraced Kabbalah leaders when they joined in voicing outrage over Worldpride in Israel and gay pride marches in Jerusalem.

Last year Rabbi David Basri, head of the Kabbalah’s Magen David Yeshiva in Jerusalem blamed gays for an outbreak of bird flu.

Basri said the outbreak was God’s punishment for the promotion of same-sex marriage.

“The Bible says that God punishes depravity first through plagues against animals and then in people,” Basri said in a religious edict.

In 2004 he lashed out at gays on the eve of pride celebrations in Jerusalem.

“This is not a disease or a deviation, but a straight-out abomination. Even animals don’t behave this way… There is no place in the Holy City for such a phenomenon,” he said.

Several hundred Kabbalah followers from around the world took part Thursday in Jewish New Year observances in a Tel Aviv hotel. In addition to Madonna other celebrities included Moore and her husband, Ashton Kutcher.

Madonna was raised a Roman Catholic but has become a follower of Jewish mysticism in recent years. She  has adopted the Hebrew name Esther and wears a red thread on her wrist to ward off the evil eye.

Affleck film dropped due to Madeleine McCann case similarities

Madeleine O’Brien, the young actress who plays the missing girl bears a startling resemblance to Madeleine McCann

New Zealand Herald | Sep 14, 2007

Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has had his directorial debut sidelined due to its uncanny similarity to the Madeleine McCann case.

The film, Gone Baby Gone is about two police detectives’ search for a missing girl.

The young actress who plays the missing girl is called Madeleine O’Brien and bears a startling resemblence to the missing four-year-old.

The film was due to be released this December but has been postponed indefinitely by the film’s distributor Buena Vista International.

Based on the 1998 novel by Dennis Lehane, Gone Baby Gone was filmed last year, long before McCann’s disappearance in May this year.

Affleck said he was “acutely aware of the situation” regarding Madeleine McCann and did not want to release them film if it was going to “inflame anybody’s sensitivities”.

The film was scheduled to screen at next month’s London Film Festival but has since been dropped from the line up.

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Related

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Based on Dennis Lehane’s novel of the same title, “Gone, Baby, Gone” is a story about a two detectives in search of a 4 year old girl that has been kidnapped in Boston. This will be Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, also adapting this screenplay himself from the author of “Mystic River.” Dorchester, one of the toughest neighborhoods in all of Boston, is no place for the weak or innocent. Its a territory defined by hard heads and even harder luck, its streets littered with broken families, hearts, dreams. When one of its own, a 4-year-old girl, goes missing, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro don’t want the case. But after pleas from the child’s aunt, they open an investigation that will ultimately risk everything — their relationship, their sanity, and even their lives — to find a little girl-lost.

O.J. Simpson Named Suspect in Armed Robbery at Casino

 

Alfred Beardsley, the memorabilia dealer, said that guns were drawn during the incident at the Palace Station hotel room and said Simpson took his property, possibly including the suit Simpson wore when he was acquitted of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, according to Cook.

ABC | Sep 14, 2007

By SCOTT MICHELS

The Former Football Star Says He Ran a ‘Sting’ to Get His Property Back

Las Vegas police have questioned former football star O.J. Simpson and named him a suspect in an armed robbery at a casino hotel room.

Simpson said he went to the room to recover sports memorabilia that belonged to him but denied breaking in, according to The Associated Press.

The armed robbery was reported Thursday night at the Palace Station Casino, Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said at a press conference Friday afternoon. He said that the robbery victim said that Simpson was involved but emphasized that no weapons had been recovered and that the investigation was in its infancy.

Dillon said Simpson, who was questioned and released, had been cooperating with the investigation.

David Cook, a lawyer for the family of Ron Goldman, who was murdered with Nicole Brown Simpson, told ABC News that a sports memorabilia dealer contacted him Friday to say that he had been robbed by Simpson and several other people.

Alfred Beardsley, the memorabilia dealer, said that guns were drawn during the incident at the Palace Station hotel room and said Simpson took his property, possibly including the suit Simpson wore when he was acquitted of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, according to Cook.

Beardsley didn’t return a phone message seeking comment. He gave a similar description of the incident to the Web site TMZ.com.

Simpson, who is not in police custody, told The Associated Press he went to the hotel room to try to recover his property but denied breaking into the room. Las Vegas police spokesman Jose Montoya told ABC News that Simpson told detectives that he believed some of the sports paraphernalia in the hotel room belonged to him

Simpson told The Associated Press that he was conducting a “sting operation” to collect his belongings at the Palace Station casino.

An auction house owner called Simpson several weeks ago to say some collectors “have a lot of your stuff and they don’t want anyone to know they are selling it,” according to The Associated Press account.

The owner set up a meeting with collectors, saying he had a private buyer interested in purchasing Simpson’s items. “It’s stolen stuff that’s mine. Nobody was roughed up,” Simpson told the AP.

Simpson told The Associated Press he was accompanied by several men he met at a wedding cocktail party, and they took the collectibles, including his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover. Simpson said he wasn’t sure where the items were taken.

A spokeswoman for the Las Vegas district attorney said the office had not yet reviewed the police reports or made a decision on whether Simpson would be arrested or charged.

Simpson’s attorney did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Simpson has had to auction off his sports collectibles, including his Heisman Trophy, to pay some of the $33.5 million judgment awarded to Goldman’s family in 1997 in their wrongful death civil suit.

Cook, the Goldmans’ lawyer, said he would seek a court order Tuesday forcing Simpson to turn over any of the items he may have recovered to the authorities to be sold. “Either it belongs to Beardsley or the stuff belongs to the sheriff, and either way, O.J. Simpson is going to walk out empty-handed,” he said.

Simpson had been scheduled to give a deposition in Miami today in a bankruptcy case involving his oldest daughter. It was rescheduled because Simpson had told attorneys that he would be out of town.