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Booker got hooked by obvious handler Boteach.
"It also introduced him to an unexpected new passion: Judaism.
Booker and Boteach met in October 1992, when a date stood Booker up.
He had arranged an evening out with a young woman, who was Jewish, and she asked to meet at a place he had never heard of: the L'Chaim Society.
When he arrived at the society's second-floor office in the heart of Oxford, she wasn't there. Debbie Boteach invited him to stay for a big dinner that was already underway, celebrating the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah.
The table was packed with friends and students, and the only empty seat was next to Boteach. Booker said they immediately fell into "deep conversation."
"A few hours later he and I were actually dancing on tables," Boteach said. "The next day he came back. And for the next two years we saw each other nearly every day and studied together."
Booker recalled those days, especially Shabbat dinners on Friday evenings, as filled with "incredible intellectual discussion and debate" about the Torah and writings that Boteach recommended, from Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" about Nazi concentration camps to ancient Jewish scholars Hillel and Maimonides. He said the "camaraderie" and religious study at L'Chaim was "sharpening my purpose in life."
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/cory-booker-rabbi-broken-relationship-divided-country-20190531.html