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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:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Tag Archives: r joseph
Will Women Getting Called To The Torah Cause Men To Lust?
Historian Marc B. Shapiro writes: …I quoted a responsum of R. Joseph Messas.[11] In this teshuvah he also explains why women can’t be given aliyot. As is well known, in earlier days this was permitted but the Sages later forbid … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro
Tagged cause men, Marc B. Shapiro, r joseph, reason women, sexual thoughts, torah reading
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The Rav Was Not A Zionist?
Marc B. Shapiro writes: To give one example of his many polemics, readers of the journal will never forget how he targeted R. Elya Svei. Yet he wouldn’t mention him by name. Instead, and as a way to show how … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro, R. J. B. Soloveitchik
Tagged intellectual freedom, joseph b soloveitchik, Marc B. Shapiro, norman lamm, r joseph, svei
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The Rav Vs. The Eruv
Dr. Marc B. Shapiro blogs: In Boston, as long as R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik was active, there was no eruv. The Rav publicly declared: I am opposed to the establishment of eruvin. An eruv in American means the abolishment of … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro
Tagged bostoner rebbe, Eruv, joseph b soloveitchik, Marc B. Shapiro, orthodox world, r joseph
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The Chemical Method Of Studying Talmud
Dr. Marc B. Shapiro blogs: The Ridbaz’ attack on the Brisker method is well known. In the introduction to his responsa, Beit Ridbaz (Jerusalem, 1908), Ridbaz writes as follows: A certain rabbi invented the "chemical" method of study. Those in … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro, Rabbis
Tagged joseph b soloveitchik, Marc B. Shapiro, oral torah, r joseph, responsa, torah study
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Dear God, Why Is There A Naked Lady In My Haggadah?
Rabbi Gil Student writes: There was always one passage that stuck out in my youthful mind because it refers to a naked woman with a little detail (see below). As I grew older and learned what the passage means from … Continue reading
Posted in Passover
Tagged gil student, haggadah, provocative language, r joseph, tanach, youthful mind
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JB’s Taped Conversations
Rabbi Gil Student writes: R. David Holzer published a fascinating book of his many taped conversations of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, titled The Rav Thinking Aloud. R. Holzer was R. Soloveitchik’s assistant for a few years and carried around a … Continue reading
Posted in Rabbis
Tagged financial concerns, gil student, lubavitcher rebbe, p 92, r joseph, voyeuristic
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Falling Into Sin
I heard a lot of perplexing things during two years of Daf Yomi but none more perplexing than the case of the man who fell off a roof and into sex with a woman. What an acrobat, I thought. Then there’s the … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro
Tagged chief rabbi, daf yomi, interpolations, Marc B. Shapiro, r joseph, rsquo
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The Torah As Protest
Rabbi Gil Student writes: In R. Chaim Navon’s recent book Genesis and Jewish Thought (pp. 59-63), he notes that there are striking similarities and differences between the Torah’s creation story and that found in various ancient Near Eastern texts. His … Continue reading →