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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:
- 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
- When Radio Hosts Transition To Podcasts
- The Jeremy Paxman Voice
- The David Dimbleby Voice
- The Krishnan Guru-Murthy Voice
- The Voice of Lyse Doucet (BBC World News)
- The Voice of Yalda Hakim (Sky News)
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
The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (2011)
I ask Grok to critique this book by Marc B. Shapiro: Marc B. Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised is a provocative and meticulously researched work that challenges a widely held assumption in Orthodox Judaism: that … Continue reading
Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 (1999)
I ask Grok to critique this book by Marc B. Shapiro: Marc B. Shapiro’s Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 (published in 2002 by The Littman Library of Jewish … Continue reading
Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook (2025)
I ask Grok to critique Marc B. Shapiro’s new book: Marc B. Shapiro’s Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook (published in 2025 by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) is a scholarly exploration of … Continue reading
Dignified Speech
Marc Shapiro writes: “While Jews are obligated to speak in a dignified manner, there is an exception when it comes to speaking about idolatry. See Megillah 25b, where among other things it states: “It is permitted for a Jew to … Continue reading
Wikipedia: ‘Neturei Karta believes that the Messiah will usher in a Jewish theocracy to rule over the Land of Israel’
According to Wikipedia: Founded in Jerusalem in 1937 by Amram Blau and Aharon Katzenelbogen, Neturei Karta was formed as an offshoot of the Aguda movement. Aguda, representing the most devout of the Haredi Jewish community in the Old Yishuv, was … Continue reading
How Jewish Law Develops
Professor Marc B. Shapiro writes: The rabbis can give rulings, but from talmudic times to the present it is the masses of religious Jews that determine if a halakhic ruling is accepted or not. Even with regard to the greatest … Continue reading
R. Shlomo Goren Was Going To Marry R. Aharon Kotler’s Daughter
Marc B. Shapiro writes: R. Zalman Nehemiah mentions that there was a rumor that R. Goren was going to be engaged with the granddaughter of R. Isser Zalman Meltzer, and when this turned out to be incorrect R. Isser Zalman … Continue reading
Are Jews Waiting For The Messiah?
Marc B. Shapiro writes: In response to R. Bergman’s point, about the need to actively wait for the Messiah, R. Steinman replies that no one fulfills this, namely, no one is really waiting for the Messiah. My understanding of what … Continue reading
Talmud Study In The Modern Era
Marc B. Shapiro published this essay about a decade ago.