acclaimed Rabbi, author, and rabbinical scholar, Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro
What exactly is he acclaimed for other than one book spreading some bogus idea about Jewish identity being inseparable from a modernist idea of Jewish religion (which also came out of Christian theology)? Does he have any extensive body of work on Halakhah or textual criticism or history or anything outside that one book?
EDIT: Like, okay, already I know he's full of shit cuz he cites David/Ruth as converts to Judaism even though a) Judaism was not a thing back then, b) Ruth is a fictional character from a Megilah written in the late period of Tanakh composition, c) the act of Ruth joining the Israelites in the book is where the Halakhah for conversion is taken from but is not actually conversion because there was no religion to convert to. Ruth is very much joining the Israelites as a people, and ethnicities have more porous boundaries historically than this guy is letting on. He's talking out of his depth here and just making assertions and regurgitating standard Orthodox cliches
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u/MichaelSchirtzer 10d ago
If you'd like to hear the rabbi share more we had him on our podcast The Palestine Pod