Strung out--Madonna, Malawi and the Kabbalah controversy

Women's Wear Daily had an interesting sidebar yesterday re an emerging controversy over Madonna's charity, Raising Malawi. Here's the story, followed some facts that I've dug up that suggest there might have been a better way to handle this:

On Wednesday, foxnews.com claimed the singer "has conned both UNICEF USA and Gucci into helping her raise money for the Kabbalah Centre and Madonna's patron gurus, the Berg family." The article claimed Madonna's charity, Raising Malawi, is a front for the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, and thus implied that Gucci's Feb. 6 benefit to aid UNICEF and Raising Malawi, which Madonna cohosts, ultimately benefits the Kabbalah Centre.

"I think that the claims in the story are outrageous, they are incorrect, inaccurate, hurtful and malicious," Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's publicist, told WWD. "The reality is — and it's never been a secret — that the Raising Malawi organization was cofounded by Madonna and Michael Berg, who is one of the spearheading executives of the Kabbalah organization. The Raising Malawi organization is completely separate from the Kabbalah, and they are run as two separate organizations."

The foxnews.com report also suggested Raising Malawi had plans to indoctrinate "unsuspecting Malawi orphans into their brand of mysticism," having flown in teachers from Malawi to Los Angeles to "retrofit them for Kabbalah."

"There are no religious lessons being taught to the children of Malawi," Rosenberg said of those claims. "It's tragic, because Madonna has put her passion and love and money behind a project that is saving children's lives, giving them food, health care and schooling. The money that is being raised at the Gucci benefit is being divided between UNICEF and Raising Malawi."

She added that the funds raised that night are earmarked for the building of a girls' school in Malawi. "There is a board, where accountability will be very clear and very specific, and all funds will be accounted for," Rosenberg said.

Gucci, too, issued a statement refuting the claims: "The accusations are not true. By agreement with Raising Malawi, the gifts and donations dedicated to Raising Malawi from this event will go directly to Raising Malawi, which is a legally distinct entity from the Kabbalah Centre or from any religious organization. Proceeds from this event are specifically allocated to support programs for orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, including the building of a girls' academy in Malawi."

Sounds pretty straightforward, no?

Yet there remains, pardon the pun, a loose thread that could give rise to further accusations that Raising Malawi is not being forthright with the facts. Go to the Raising Malawi site and you'll find a reference to the charity's partnership with Spirituality for Kids, an organization dedicated to providing children with the "spiritual tools" that will help them find "true spirituality." A quick trip over to Guidestar reveals that the president of SFK is Karen Berg, co-founder of the Kabbalah Centre and Michael Berg's wife.

Is any of this in violation of the law? Is it weird or underhanded or cultish? No, not at all. Having a religious motive, working with a religious organization and partnering with one's spouse in a charitable endeavor are not illegal in the least.

But that's not how the PR teams responded. Instead, they disclaimed any and all connection between Madonna's charity and religious instruction--an assertion that Raising Malawi's own website undercuts.

How should the charity have responded? More below: