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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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it's remarkable that for all the discussion on fascism and religious extremist, no one is overly concerned with a religiously extremist fascist micro-nation in the Big Apple.

...what, apart from the New York Times, in this very article upon discussion?

A single article for an issue that has been blazing for much more than a decade, does not qualify as "overly concerned", when the article focuses on the victimhood of the defecting group. The actual instantiation of a religiously extremist fascist micro-nation does not command one one-thousandth of the attention in mass media as would be expected. The article is largely free from language implication religious extremism and fascism. This is a far cry from the dramatizations of "Christian nationalism" that Biden et al want you to be concerned about.

Simple Googling found more than a few mainstream media articles about problems in Hasidic schools from years past. Here's Newsweek writing about child abuse. NYT has also written about child abuse, as well. Here's CNN about a specific case. Another New York mag, generally about the yeshivas. The Guardian about the issue in UK. I found some other articles that were paywalled well enough that I'm not linking them, including loads by Jewish magazines.

Of course, if your specific concern is whether it's specifically labelled as fascism and religious extremism, I don't believe the word fascism is used, at least - but it's hardly like New York Times has been the first to discuss the issue of Hasidic schools.

Well, yes, but this "single article" is a hitpiece in the New York Times. This is Zeus throwing his thunderbolt. This is the new popular consensus written right in front of us. As single articles (that aren't breaking news) go, this is about as consequential as they get.

True, and I do hope the NYT continues this investigative path. All props to the NYT for this great piece.