Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 9, 2022

She told me her great aspiration for her life was to have a marriage like her parents that had lasted for decades, amid the kind of challenges that every marriage faces. She told me she believed in partnering for life, and was disgusted by the kind of sexual exploitation of women that had become de rigueur in the age of internet porn.

Had she contributed to that exploitation, I asked her. No she was adamant that the cover girl pin-ups she had done for Playboy and her close friend, whom she greatly admired, Hugh Hefner, was art rather than pornography. She hated internet porn and felt it was ruining marriages and relationships.

Our conversations covered the gamut of politics, religion, spirituality and, especially, the inspiration necessary to raise healthy children.

Pamela joined me and my family for Shabbat dinner in New York on multiple occasions, and my wife and children came to greatly respect her warmth, intelligence and commitment to communal service. She was always humorous, humble and self-effacing. Once, while she sat next between me and my wife, a friend of mine who is a renowned writer, joked: Rabbi Shmuley is the only man who can sit next to Pamela Anderson and ogle her Rolodex. Everyone laughed, none more than Pamela.

Our friendship led to a jointly authored opinion piece in 2016 in The Wall Street Journal headlined Take the Pledge: No More Indulging Porn, which became a media sensation. Pamela and I were invited on to global media platforms to talk about how porn was slowly conditioning men to view women not as equals but as a means to the fulfilment of their libidinous ends. It was eroding male respect for women.

Many accused her of hypocrisy. Youre condemning porn after your many explicit photo shoots? But she more than held her own as she argued she had every right to espouse her values as pornography became increasingly degenerate.

Particularly interesting was our joint lecture together at the Oxford Union. I opened my speech by saying: Its not easy for an author and media personality to appear alongside an international sex symbol to deliver a speech at Oxford. But I have supreme confidence that Pamela will do just fine.

Showing no hint of nervousness, Pamela was articulate, compelling and won over the large audience, especially women, with her message: that you can be sexy without being exploited, you can be attractive without being degraded, you can be noticed without putting yourself in any position that is subordinate.

Pamela was justifiably on a high after the event. For a woman who had been ogled her entire life, she was being acknowledged for the power and conviction of her ideas.

Original post:

What I, as a Rabbi, have in common with my friend Pamela Anderson - Telegraph.co.uk

Category: Rabbi
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