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Dennis Prager

(Redirected from Dennis Mark Prager)

Dennis Mark Prager (/ˈpreɪɡər/; born August 2, 1948)[1] is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Dennis Prager Show. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which primarily creates five-minute videos from an American conservative perspective, among other content.

Dennis Prager
Prager in 2021
Born (1948-08-02) August 2, 1948 (age 76)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materBrooklyn College (BA)
Occupations
  • Radio host
  • Political commentator
  • Founder of PragerU
  • Author
Spouses
  • Janice Adelstein
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1981; div. 1986)​
  • Francine Stone
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1988; div. 2005)​
  • Susan Reed
    ​
    (m. 2008)​
Relatives
Prager's voice
On religious people's views of the presidency of Donald Trump
Websitedennisprager.com

His initial political work starting in 1969 concerned Refuseniks, the Soviet Jews who were unable to emigrate.[2] He gradually began offering more and broader commentary on politics.

Early life and education

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Dennis Prager was born in Brooklyn to Hilda (née Friedfeld; 1919–2009) and Max Prager (1918–2014), the latter the son of Polish Jewish immigrants.[3] Prager and his brother, Kenneth Prager,[4] were raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish home. He attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York, where he befriended Joseph Telushkin.

Prager attended Brooklyn College, where he double-majored in anthropology and history, and received a B.A. in 1970.[1][5] He became a fellow at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and attended there from 1970 to 1972, while he also took courses at the University of Leeds.[1][5] After he left graduate school, Prager left Modern Orthodoxy but maintained many traditional Jewish practices; he remains religious.[1] Prager holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from Pepperdine University.[6]

Career

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Beginnings

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Prager speaking at the California Capitol Building in 2008

In 1969, while he was studying in England, he was recruited by a Jewish group to travel to the Soviet Union to interview Jews about their life there. When he returned the next year, he was in demand as a speaker on repression of Soviet Jews; he earned enough from lectures to travel, and visited around sixty countries.[2][7] He became the national spokesman for the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.[8]

The start of Prager's career overlapped with a growing tendency among American Jews, who had been staunchly liberal, to move toward the center and some to the right, driven in part by the influx of Jews from the Soviet Union.[9] In 1975, Prager and Telushkin published an introduction to Judaism intended for nonobservant Jews: The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, which became a bestseller. Among the questions addressed in the text were: how does Judaism differ from Christianity, and can one doubt the existence of God and still be a good Jew, and how do you account for unethical but religious Jews?[1][10]

Prager ran the Brandeis-Bardin Institute from 1976 to 1983; Telushkin worked with him there.[1] It was Prager's first salaried job.[7] He soon earned a reputation as a moral critic attacking secularism and narcissism, both of which he said were destroying society; some people called him a Jewish Billy Graham.[7]

1980s

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In 1982, KABC (AM) in Los Angeles hired Prager to host its Sunday night religious talk show Religion on the Line,[2] which got top ratings[11] and eventually led to a weekday talk show.[12][13] He and Telushkin published another book in 1983, Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism.[1]

According to a review in Commentary, the book depicts antisemitism as a "sinister form of flattery"; the authors wrote that hatred of Jews arises from resentment over Jews' acceptance of the doctrine that they are God's chosen people, charged with bringing a moral message to the world.[14] The book describes Jews as both a nation (stateless for a long time) and followers of a religion and says that this identity is essential to Judaism; the book says that calls for Jews to culturally assimilate as well as opposition to Zionism are both forms of antisemitism.[14][15] The book describes secular Jews as people who have lost their way, and who generally fall into the error of applying Judaism's mission to reform the world in ways that tend to be leftist, totalitarian, and destructive.[14][15]

He also wrote a syndicated column for newspapers across the country. In 1985, Prager launched his own quarterly journal, Ultimate Issues,[2] which was renamed to The Prager Perspective[13] in 1996.[1]

In 1986, he divorced and underwent a year of therapy, which the Encyclopedia of Judaism says contributed to his 1999 book Happiness is a Serious Problem.[1] In 1990, he wrote an essay called "Judaism, Homosexuality and Civilization" that argued against normalizing homosexuality in the Jewish community[16] and placed sexual sins on a continuum from premarital sex, celibacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and incest; he argued that confining sex to heterosexual marriage desexualized religion, which was a great achievement of ancient Jewish tradition that was worth fighting to retain.[17]

1990s

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By 1992, he was remarried.[16] By that time he was, according to the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a "fixture on local radio" and "a Jewish St. George battling the forces of secularity on behalf of simple 'goodness'", and generally socially conservative, with some exceptions; he supported a woman's legal access to abortion (although he said it was usually immoral), and supported and justified sex between non-married consenting men and women.[16] In 1992, he became involved with the Stephen S. Wise Temple and gave talks there,[1] and got a weekday night talk show on KABC.[18]

In 1994, Prager also did an hour each weekday, via satellite on WABC, KABC's sister station in New York, before doing his KABC show locally.[19]

During the 1994–1995 television season, Multimedia Entertainment syndicated a television show featuring Prager.[20][21] Prager said he was "ambivalent about television as a medium for deep, intelligent programming" but that the show was "an incredible opportunity to reach a mass audience with my belief system".[22] In 1995, he moved the studio audience on-stage with him where they could interact with him more directly.[23]

Political commentary

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Prager speaking at a Turning Point USA event in 2020

Prager supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 US presidential election.[24] In 1994, the Anti-Defamation League published a report on antisemitism in the Christian right movement; Prager, who aligned with the social and political conservatism of the Christian right, attacked the ADL and its report.[25] In 1995, he urged conservative Jews to be open to working with conservative Christians, like the Christian Coalition.[26] In 1995, he named Jacob Petuchowski, Eliezer Berkovits, Harold Kushner, C.S. Lewis, Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and George Gilder as the people who had influenced his theology the most.[27]

In 1995, Prager criticized the Illinois Supreme Court decision in the Baby Richard case that removed a child from his adoptive parents.[28] With KABC he held a "Rally for Baby Richard",[29] where he got support from actors Priscilla Presley, Tom Selleck, and John McCook.[12]

In 1996, Prager testified in Congress in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act. Prager testified that "the acceptance of homosexuality as the equal of heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of Western civilization."[30][31] Prager worked with Bob Dole's campaign in the 1996 presidential election; when polls prior to the election showed that the Dole campaign did not have much Jewish support, Prager said this was because "American Jews are ignorant regarding the anti Israel aspects of the current Democrat Party."[32]

Since 1999, he has hosted a nationally syndicated talk show on the socially and politically conservative Christian radio station KRLA in Los Angeles.[1] KRLA is part of the Salem Media Group that carries other conservative hosts, including James Dobson, Randall Terry, Janet Parshall, Sebastian Gorka and Larry Elder; it is a key voice of the Christian right that seeks to change American politics as well as the way that individual people live.[33][34]

In 2006, Prager criticized Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, for announcing that he would use the Quran for the reenactment of his swearing in ceremony.[35] Prager wrote: "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress." In response, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch called for Prager to end his service on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.[36]

In 2009, Prager joined other Salem Radio Network hosts to oppose the Affordable Care Act.[37] In 2014, while same-sex marriage in the United States was in the process of being nationally legalized, he wrote that if that were to happen, then "there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry."[38][39] In 2014, he also said that the "heterosexual AIDS" crisis was something "entirely manufactured by the Left".[39]

Prager endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but said that Trump was his "17th choice out of 17 candidates". He clarified that he "was not a Trump supporter, when there was a choice" but added, "There is no choice now."[40] Prager had previously said that Trump was "unfit to be a presidential candidate, let alone president".[41] Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic criticized Prager for endorsing Trump.[42]

In 2017, Prager was invited to be a guest conductor for the volunteer orchestra of Santa Monica, California, as part of a fundraising concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Some of the orchestra members protested the invitation, which they considered promoting bigotry. The orchestra leader, Guido Lamell, had invited Prager because he admired him, as Prager often discussed and promoted classical music on his shows and had guest-conducted a few times in the past, and because he thought Prager's presence might help raise more money.[39][38] Lamell called Prager "a great man, leader and friend".[43]

In February 2020, he told a caller: "Of course you should never call anybody the n-word, that's despicable," but complained about the word itself being considered unacceptable.[44][45] In April 2020, Prager called the COVID-19 lockdowns "the greatest mistake in the history of humanity."[46][47] He was subsequently criticized in the media for trivializing the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic.[48] In a 2020 video called "'Follow the Science' Is a LIE", Prager touted Sweden's response to COVID-19 and asserted, "Sweden is the proof that lockdowns are useless". A fact check in December 2020 found Prager's claim false, as Sweden had higher rates of COVID infection and mortality than other Scandinavian countries.[49] Since then Prager continues to criticize the lockdowns as unwarranted and destructive to society after findings from a commission set up by Sweden's parliament concluded that the government should have shut venues and taken other tougher measures early in the COVID-19 pandemic, though its no-lockdown strategy was broadly beneficial (dated February 25, 2022).[50]

In a November 2021 Newsmax interview, Prager argued that "irrational fears" about people not vaccinated against COVID-19 had wrongly made them "the pariahs of America as I have not seen in my lifetime", more than gay men and intravenous drug users during the AIDS crisis, who he inaccurately said had not been ostracized.[51][52] The Independent called his comments "alarming revisionism".[51] In the interview, Prager also called concerns about climate change "idiotic" and "irrational".[51]

PragerU

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Main article: PragerU

In 2009, Prager and his producer Allen Estrin started a website called PragerU, which creates five-minute videos on various topics from a conservative perspective.[53][54][needs update] BuzzFeed News described PragerU as "one of the biggest, most influential and yet least understood forces in online media." As of 2018 it spent around 40% of its annual $10 million budget on marketing; each video is produced according to a consistent style. Videos cover topics such as "racism, sexism, income inequality, gun ownership, Islam, immigration, Israel, police brutality" and speech on college campuses. BuzzFeed News wrote that "the biggest reason PragerU has escaped national attention is that it mostly doesn't do Trump," or engage with the political news cycle.[41] Some of its videos had viewer access restricted by YouTube in 2017.[55]

Personal life

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Prager speaks English, French, Russian and Hebrew.[56] His brother, Kenneth Prager, is a physician and professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center who advocates for vaccines and against hydroxychloroquine.[4][57] His nephew, Joshua Prager, is a former writer for The Wall Street Journal.[58]

Bibliography

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In 2018, Prager published a commentary on the Book of Exodus; this was followed by another commentary on the Book of Genesis in 2019. Both were published by the Salem Media Group.[10]

  • The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism (with Joseph Telushkin) (1986) ISBN 978-0-671-62261-9
  • Think a Second Time (44 Essays on 44 Subjects) (1996) ISBN 978-0-06-098709-1
  • Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual[13] (1999) ISBN 978-0-06-098735-0
  • Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (with Joseph Telushkin) (2003) ISBN 978-0-7432-4620-0
  • Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph (2012) ISBN 978-0-06-198512-6
  • The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code (2015) ISBN 978-1-62157-417-0
  • The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Path to Follow (2015) (for children) ISBN 978-1-5113-1709-2
  • The Rational Bible: Exodus (2018) ISBN 978-1-62157-772-0
  • The Rational Bible: Genesis (2019) ISBN 978-1-62157-898-7
  • The Rational Passover Haggadah (2022) ISBN 978-1-68451-258-4
  • The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses (2022) ISBN 978-1621579007

Filmography

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Karesh, Sara E.; Hurvitz, Mitchell M. (2006). "Prager, Dennis". In Melton, J. Gordon (ed.). Encyclopedia of Judaism. Facts on File. pp. 402–403. ISBN 978-0-8160-6982-8.
  2. ^ a b c d "RADIO : The Prager Prism : Dennis Prager has eight hours a week to talk on the radio about 'the great issues of life'; so, what makes him so important?". Los Angeles Times. November 17, 1991. Archived from the original on January 29, 2020.
  3. ^ Prager, Kenneth. "Dr". Jewish Standard. The Jewish Standard. Archived from the original on November 17, 2022. Retrieved November 17, 2022.
  4. ^ a b "On the death of my father". Jewish Journal. September 3, 2014. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  5. ^ a b Bezalel, Gordon (2007). "Prager, Dennis". In Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael (eds.). Encyclopedia Judaica, v. 16, 2nd ed. Thomson Gale. pp. 447–448. ISBN 978-0-02-865944-2.
  6. ^ Zekan, Karen (July 4, 1999). "Dennis Prager brings his philosophical, morality-based radio show to Vegas". Las Vegas Sun. Archived from the original on July 5, 2022. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Baker, Bob (August 5, 1979). "Self-Worship and Secularism Called Greatest Enemies of Today's Society". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ "Kallah participants to hear Dennis Prager". The Jewish Press [Omaha, Neb]. December 11, 1981.
  9. ^ Friedman, Murray (2003). "The Changing Jewish Political Profile". American Jewish History. 91 (3/4): 423–438. doi:10.1353/ajh.2005.0008. JSTOR 23887289. S2CID 153461672.
  10. ^ a b Kirsch, Jonathan (May 16, 2018). "A Rational View of the Torah". Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved July 13, 2018.
  11. ^ "Commercial-Free Religious Broadcasts--a Fading Signal : Media: While there were about 30 programs airing regularly in the L.A. Area, that number has now dwindled to two". Los Angeles Times. April 14, 1990. Archived from the original on November 4, 2017.
  12. ^ a b "The day you have a child is the day you become vulnerable. That's why we're here" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 1, 2022. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  13. ^ a b c "Mr. Morality". Los Angeles Times. February 4, 1998. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020.
  14. ^ a b c Charen, Mona (October 1, 1983). "Review: Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism, by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin". Commentary Magazine. Archived from the original on November 13, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  15. ^ a b Boyd, Malcolm (August 28, 1983). "Anti-Zionism vs. Anti-Semitism: the Dejudaization of Jew-hatred". Los Angeles Times.
  16. ^ a b c Margolis, David (December 1992). "Dennis Prager: A Profile The man behind the golden voice". Los Angeles Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on September 4, 2018. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  17. ^ Balch, David L. (2007). Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 292–293. ISBN 978-1-55635-538-7.
  18. ^ "KABC Changes" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved May 23, 2020.
  19. ^ "R&R Street Talk: Rumbles" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  20. ^ "The Dennis Prager Show". TV Guide. 1994. Archived from the original on July 11, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  21. ^ "Toasting a new talker" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  22. ^ Richmond, Ray (November 11, 1994). "No freaks: Dennis Prager's talk show is all about values". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  23. ^ Snow, Shauna (January 17, 1995). "'Sunset' settlement: ... television". Los Angeles Times. The Arts. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  24. ^ Oppenheimer, Mark (March–April 2018). "Inside the right-wing YouTube empire that's quietly turning millennials into conservatives". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on May 25, 2018. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  25. ^ Dershowitz, Alan M. (2000). The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century. Little, Brown. pp. 158–159. ISBN 978-0-446-93050-5.
  26. ^ Barnes, Fred (November 1995). "The Orthodox alliance". The American Enterprise. 6 (6): 70.
  27. ^ Kessler, E J (November 24, 1995). "The Lord's Prager: Talking to 'Our Jew on the West Coast'". Forward. p. 1.
  28. ^ "Prager on Baby Richard". Los Angeles Times. May 22, 1995. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  29. ^ "Robby DeBoer Papers". Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  30. ^ Stoll, Ira (May 24, 1996). "The Stoll Report: News From the Nation's Capital". The Forward.
  31. ^ "House Hearing, 104th Congress - DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT" (PDF). govinfo. U.S. Government Printing Office. May 15, 1996. p. 133. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  32. ^ Stoll, Ira (November 1, 1996). "Donkeys Jockey for Credit As Clinton Victory Looms". The Forward.
  33. ^ Piore, Adam (December 2005). "A Higher Frequency". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020. Retrieved September 1, 2018.
  34. ^ Stoltzfus, Mandy (May 8, 2006). "Conservative Spotlight: Chuck DeFeo". Human Events. Archived from the original on August 20, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2018. "Our nationally syndicated hosts — Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt — reach millions of Americans every week. I come to work every day thinking about how we can move those folks online to Townhall.com so they can voice their opinion through blogging, pod-casting and interacting with other conservatives." DeFeo is excited about the opportunities he has using Townhall.com and Salem's radio to reach members of the conservative movement and involve them in policy battles and political campaigns.
  35. ^ Marty, Robin (November 28, 2006). "Dennis Prager - Hateful and Wrong – Updated". Minnesota Monitor. Archived from the original on January 9, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2006.
  36. ^ "Koch Calls for Pundit's Ouster from Shoah Council". The Jewish Daily Forward. December 8, 2006. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
  37. ^ Gilgoff, Dan (September 8, 2009). "More Christian Conservatives Against Healthcare Reform". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on August 4, 2019. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  38. ^ a b Garcia-Navarro, Lulu (August 13, 2017). "Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra Confronts Controversy Over Right-Wing Guest Conductor". NPR.org. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
  39. ^ a b c Deb, Sopan (August 7, 2017). "Santa Monica Symphony Roiled by Conservative Guest Conductor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 20, 2018. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
  40. ^ Carter, Evan (September 8, 2016). "Q&A: Dennis Prager off the air". The Collegian. Archived from the original on September 24, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  41. ^ a b Bernstein, Joseph (March 3, 2018). "How PragerU Is Winning The Right-Wing Culture War Without Donald Trump". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on February 14, 2019. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
  42. ^ Friedersdorf, Conor (September 7, 2016). "Dennis Prager Puts Defeating Clinton Ahead of All His Other Principles". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 24, 2018. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
  43. ^ Schultz, Rick (August 17, 2017). "Dennis Prager draws classical newbies, and a musicians' boycott, at Disney Hall concert". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2019.
  44. ^ "Dennis Prager says it's 'idiotic' he can't use the N-word". The Daily Dot. February 14, 2020. Archived from the original on November 2, 2020. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  45. ^ "It's 'idiotic you can't say the N-word,' says radio host Dennis Prager, soon to speak at Calgary conference | CBC News". Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
  46. ^ Moran, Lee (April 29, 2020). "Conservative Pundit's Hot Take on Coronavirus Lockdown Gets the Slapdown It Deserves". HuffPost. Archived from the original on April 29, 2020.
  47. ^ Feldman, Josh (April 29, 2020). "PragerU Mocked for Tweet on Lockdowns". Mediaite. Archived from the original on April 29, 2020. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  48. ^ Peters, Jeremy W. (April 1, 2020). "Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media's Coronavirus Distortion". New York Times. Archived from the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved February 20, 2021.
  49. ^ "Fact check: Sweden has not achieved herd immunity, is not proof that lockdowns are useless". Reuters. December 2, 2020. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2022.
  50. ^ Ashlander, Johan (February 25, 2022). "Sweden's COVID response was flawed but allowed freedoms - commission". Reuters. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  51. ^ a b c Woodward, Alex (November 9, 2021). "Right-wing radio host compares unvaccinated 'pariahs' to gay men during Aids crisis". The Independent. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  52. ^ Jacobson, Louis (November 11, 2021). "PolitiFact - Dennis Prager's Pants on Fire claim that it was 'inconceivable' that gay men were seen as 'pariahs'". @politifact. Archived from the original on November 11, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  53. ^ "Facebook apologises to right-wing site". August 20, 2018. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  54. ^ Bray, Hiawatha. "Youtube restricts access to Alan Dershowitz video". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on November 13, 2016. Retrieved August 8, 2017. The videos are mini-lectures on topics from feminism to religion to foreign policy, presented from a conservative point of view.
  55. ^ Gardner, Eriq (January 2, 2018). "Conservative Video Producer Suing Google Over "Censorship" Pushes for Injunction". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  56. ^ Christian, Sena (March 31, 2011). "Dennis Prager to speak locally". www.goldcountrymedia.com. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  57. ^ Schluger NW, Prager K (February 27, 2022). "A License to Practice Medicine Cannot be a License to Harm". The American Journal of Medicine. 135 (8): e229–e230. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2022.01.051. PMC 8882365. PMID 35235818.
  58. ^ "Joshua Prager: Can Everything Change In An Instant?". NPR.org. Archived from the original on April 27, 2022. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  59. ^ For goodness sake II. WorldCat. OCLC 370275688.
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