Reply To: Artscroll Controls Chareidi Hashkafa

1- every gadol biography. (but this is old news)

2- their translated and annotated everything – apparently, they are quite selective about what to put in and what to leave out. Take a look at the seforim blog for a slew of examples.

3- types of books they are willing to publish (or unwilling).

4- Even in the gemaras, you can bet that you won’t be finding much in the way of controversial statements unless there was absolutely no way they could sugarcoat it/leave it out altogether.

The overall point that I am trying to make is that at least some gedolim – and enough of the ones that matter – feel in general that the public must be protected from quite a bit of Torah literature written by acknowledged geonim, rishonim, and acharonim. This is felt in the rigid, my-way-or-you’re-an-apikores-dioraysa mindset propogated as the proper approach to hashkafa in general,, and in the viewpoints / books that have been banned. Artscroll seems (to me anyway) to be at the forefront of this effort to create this hashkafik utopia of ubiquitous conformity that not only fails to acknowledge but roundly castigates any and all dissent.