American Orthodoxy Has No Public Intellectuals

In his fourth lecture on R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: Jonathan Sacks is in England. American Orthodox Judaism has no public intellectuals. After Michael Wyschogrod, Meir Soloveitchik may be the most distinguished public intellectual in Orthodoxy. Being that he is only about 35, that doesn’t say much for Orthodoxy. Even though he is brilliant, that we don’t have people older and more distinguished says something about Orthodoxy. The Reform and Conservative movement has many such people (people who try to change the culture from the standpoint of their religion), like what David Novak does.