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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- After the Kings: Ben Fordham and the Remaking of 2GB Breakfast
- The Entertainer’s Exemption: John Laws and the Price of Trust
- What the Record Shows: David Marr and the Uses of Evidence
- Peopling the Emptiness: The Life of Patrick White
- Crossing Lines: Nick McKenzie and the Limits of Method
- Australian Investigative Journalist Chris Masters: The Man Who Saw In
- The Unwinder: George Packer and the Study of American Decline
- Thomas Edsall: The Reporter Who Treated Politics as a System
- Ross Douthat and the Persistence of Belief
- Joseph Kahn and the Stewardship of The New York Times
- The Institutionalist: Dean Baquet and the Remaking of American Journalism
- The Publisher Always Wins – A Jill Abramson Biography
- Howard Zinn – The Historian Who Took Sides
- Linton Besser: A Reporter and the Paper Trail
- Gerald Stone and the Making of Australian Current Affairs
- Paul Barry: A Chronicler of Australian Power
- The Dean of Revolutionary Scholarship: Gordon S. Wood, 1933-2026
- The Last Generalist: Bob Ellis and Australian Public Life
- WEHT to Investigative Journalism?
- The Genius Myth: The Dangerous Allure of Rebels, Monsters and Rule-Breakers
BEST POSTS:
* American Epistemics (1-19-26)
* The Most Socially Toxic Inconvenient Truths (1-18-26)
* The Luke Ford Genre (1-18-26)
* The Filkins Pivot: Legacy Prestige and the Fracturing of the Chattering Class (1-16-26)
* Decoding The Trump Doctrine (1-4-26)
* If Tatiana Schlossberg were “Tatiana Smith” (12-30-25)
* ‘I’m So Trained’: How The Credential Society Burned Down the Palisades (12-28-25)
* Status Closure and The Lost Generation (12-25-25)
* The Bondi Massacre (12-15-25)
* Sydney Jews Learn That Their Aussie Social Contract Has Become A Suicide Pact (12-15-25)
* Terror in Sydney: Analyzing the “Chanukah by the Sea” Massacre (12-14-25)
* Decoding Nick Fuentes (11-2-25)
* The Landscape of Emotional Sobriety (10-29-30)
* The Rise & Fall Of Air Supply (10-19-25)
* No Kings, No Results: How Elite Pride Replaced Real Progress (10-19-25)
* You Are An Important Soldier In A Great War (9-7-25)
* The Revolt Of The Masses (8-31-25)
* The Covenant of Ashwood (8-24-25)
* If you can’t trust central bankers, then who can you trust? (8-23-25)
* Why Is The Elite Media Singing From The Same Hymnal About The Trump-Putin Summit? (8-17-25)
* Why Do Smart News Operations Sound So Uniformly Dumb So Often? (8-16-25)
* Nobody Is Coming (8-10-25)
* When Elites Restrict Our Speech, It’s Because They Love Truth, Freedom & Democracy (8-3-25)
Category Archives: Marc B. Shapiro
Suspicion Of Converts
I was reading some commentary on the Torah portion of Pinchas and the commentators such as Rashi say that Pinchas was assailed by his peers for descending from a convert (Yitro) and therefore his actions came out of self-seeking impure … Continue reading
When Did You Last Hear A Rabbi Berate His Congregation?
I’ve never heard a rabbi berate his congregation. I know it happened in the past but it is rare these days. Marc Shapiro replies to my question: “[It is] not very common today, but in traditional societies it certainly happened. … Continue reading
Is It Ok To Touch Women For Healing Purposes?
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: There is currently a situation in London where a leading rabbi is charged with inappropriate contact with women. This rabbi denies the charges. However, he has admitted, so I am informed, that he did touch … Continue reading
Rabbi Prof. Marc Shapiro on the need for Kashrut Organizations
Date: 11/11/2003 8:02:00 AM Subject: Clarification Message: I have noticed that many people don’t understand the basic shitah of this website. With your permission, let me clarify something. Rav Henkin, who together with R. Moshe Feinstein was the leading halakhic … Continue reading
Rabbis Talk Differently To Other Rabbis
In his fourth lecture on Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: Wikipedia has everything you need. In the rabbinic world, you don’t have book reviews [like what Rav Zevin did in Sofrim U’Sefarim]. It’s not part … Continue reading
Artscroll Vs Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin
In his third lecture on Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: I expected Obama to win. I did not vote for him. Rav Zevin wrote Ha’moadim Be’halachah – halachic studies of the Jewish festivals. When this … Continue reading
Should Ordinary Jews Study Talmud?
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: In all the discussions recently about the success of Daf Yomi, I didn’t see anyone note that one of the reasons this success is so surprising is that the whole notion of Daf Yomi goes … Continue reading
Secular Studies In Lithuania
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: Although in the U.S. the Telz yeshiva adopted a very anti-secular studies perspective, this was not the case in Europe. R. Joseph Leib Bloch was very involved with the Yavneh day school system in Lithuania, … Continue reading
A World Congress Of Rabbis
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: In a 1931 letter to R. Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 273, the Kovno Rav asks R. Kook if he agrees with him that a world congress of rabbis should be convened – אספת רבנים עולמית … Continue reading
When Agudat Israel Did Things
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: …it brings us back to a time when Agudat Israel actually did something other than put on a big Daf Yomi celebration every seven years.[6] There was a time when Agudat Israel tried to accomplish … Continue reading