On Artscroll revisionism: Professor Zvi Zohar Reviews "Aleppo City of Scholars"

In this review, Zohar shows how Artscroll recreated the Syrian-Jewish Aleppo community in its own (Charedi) image. He cites numerous examples of how the book (pictured) glosses over those Rabbis whose outlook did not conform to current Charedi standards and conveniently omits and outright distorts facts to suit its agenda.

Professor Zvi Zohar, is scholar of modern Middle Eastern Rabbinic Halacha. He has written two seminal books on the subject - masoret u-tmura and he-iru penei mizrah. He is currently teaching at Bar-Ilan University and is a musmach of the Hartman Institute.

link in PDF format


English Translation

Professor Marc Shapiro on the Moroccan Rabbinate (Audio)

Professor Marc B. Shapiro (Author of the excellent biography of Rabbi Yechiel Weinberg, Between the Yeshiva world and Modern Orthodoxy ),delivered the 2nd annual Dr. Asher Siev Memorial Lecture at Yeshiva University, entitled "A Non-Orthodox Traditional Approach: Reflections on the Authority of the Moroccan Rabbinate." Listen here

Hat tip to Menachem Butler at the Seforim blog.