Shmuley Boteach

Jacob Shmuel "Shmuley" Boteach (; born November 19, 1966) is an American rabbi, author, and media host.

He is the author of 36 books, including the best-seller Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy (1999) and Kosher Jesus (2012).

He hosted two seasons of the reality television series Shalom in the Home on TLC.

Newsweek named him one of the 10 most influential rabbis in the United States, and The Jerusalem Post named him one of the fifty most influential rabbis in the world.

Early and personal life

Boteach was born in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of five children. He also spent part of his early years in Miami, Florida. His father Yoav Botach (1932–2020) was an Iranian Jew who left Isfahan with his family of 13 to settle in Israel. His mother Eleanor (1942–2023) was an American Ashkenazi Jew who met his father in Beersheba, Israel, where she was visiting as a tourist. Shortly after their marriage, the couple relocated with their children to New York and then to Los Angeles. Boteach's parents divorced when he was eight years old; on his bar mitzvah, he told his parents he wanted them to reunite.

In 1977, he joined the Miami Boys Choir (then known as the Miami Choir Boys). His most notable solo was in the hit song "Boruch Hashem" in 1979.

Boteach 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 (for three years at Torat Emet Yeshiva).