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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
How Important Was R. Avigdor Miller?
Rabbi Avigdor Miller is the favorite contemporary rabbi of several friends of mine. I ask historian Marc B. Shapiro: “How important a rabbi was Avigdor Miller? Would you ever do a class on him?” Marc replies: “He was not important … Continue reading
Issues of Dogma in Recent Orthodox Literature, Marc Shapiro
Were The Vilna Gaon And The Chatam Sofer Rationalists?
In his fourth lecture on the Chatam Sofer for Torah in Motion, historian Marc B. Shapiro said: “The Rambam did not believe in amulets and the like. The Chatam Sofer would give out amulets. He was not a Lithuanian Torah … Continue reading
Historian Marc B. Shapiro: “Luke Ford reports all of the ‘juicy’ quotes, and has been doing it for years.”
History professor Marc B. Shapiro emails FailedMessiah: The conversation in my class was not designed to be broadcast all over the world so people can join in and heap abuse on a great Torah sage (and I have to say … Continue reading
Newsweek’s List Of America’s Top 50 Rabbis
Historian Marc B. Shapiro responded to my inquiry: “I am not sure what they mean by “important”. Is important the same as influential? They have many of the big ones, but are also missing some. How about the Satmar Rebbes, … Continue reading
Should Orthodox Jewish Parents Worry About Sending Their Kids To A Secular College?
Jewish Theological Seminary professor Alan Mittleman wrote in First Things in 2003: There is a pamphlet making its way, via the Internet, through the Modern Orthodox stream of the American Jewish community. Written by Gil Perl and Yaakov Weinstein, graduate … Continue reading
The Censorship That Stopped Scholar Marc Shapiro From Writing For Tradition Magazine
Rectify posts: “Let me ask you – you and some others are so concerned about the censorship of the bare breasted and otherwise revealing images – so perhaps you should adorn your books with them, such vital parts of the … Continue reading
How To Write Histories Of Great Rabbinic Sages
In a lecture on rabbinic biographies for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: It was two of my publications that brought this issue front and center in the Orthodox world… I wrote a doctorate on Rabbi Yechiel … Continue reading
I Do A Page Of Talmud A Day But I Don’t Understand Much
I like to drink a couple of cups of coffee and stand there and listen to the rabbi and I feel like I’m doing something amazing. I don’t think I’d get up early every morning to struggle over one line … Continue reading
Conversion Before Modern Times
In his second lecture on R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: Chaim Ozer Grodzinski said that even if you acknowledge you have desires and will commit certain sins, that does not … Continue reading