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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- After the Kings: Ben Fordham and the Remaking of 2GB Breakfast
- The Entertainer’s Exemption: John Laws and the Price of Trust
- What the Record Shows: David Marr and the Uses of Evidence
- Peopling the Emptiness: The Life of Patrick White
- Crossing Lines: Nick McKenzie and the Limits of Method
- Australian Investigative Journalist Chris Masters: The Man Who Saw In
- The Unwinder: George Packer and the Study of American Decline
- Thomas Edsall: The Reporter Who Treated Politics as a System
- Ross Douthat and the Persistence of Belief
- Joseph Kahn and the Stewardship of The New York Times
- The Institutionalist: Dean Baquet and the Remaking of American Journalism
- The Publisher Always Wins – A Jill Abramson Biography
- Howard Zinn – The Historian Who Took Sides
- Linton Besser: A Reporter and the Paper Trail
- Gerald Stone and the Making of Australian Current Affairs
- Paul Barry: A Chronicler of Australian Power
- The Dean of Revolutionary Scholarship: Gordon S. Wood, 1933-2026
- The Last Generalist: Bob Ellis and Australian Public Life
- WEHT to Investigative Journalism?
- The Genius Myth: The Dangerous Allure of Rebels, Monsters and Rule-Breakers
BEST POSTS:
* American Epistemics (1-19-26)
* The Most Socially Toxic Inconvenient Truths (1-18-26)
* The Luke Ford Genre (1-18-26)
* The Filkins Pivot: Legacy Prestige and the Fracturing of the Chattering Class (1-16-26)
* Decoding The Trump Doctrine (1-4-26)
* If Tatiana Schlossberg were “Tatiana Smith” (12-30-25)
* ‘I’m So Trained’: How The Credential Society Burned Down the Palisades (12-28-25)
* Status Closure and The Lost Generation (12-25-25)
* The Bondi Massacre (12-15-25)
* Sydney Jews Learn That Their Aussie Social Contract Has Become A Suicide Pact (12-15-25)
* Terror in Sydney: Analyzing the “Chanukah by the Sea” Massacre (12-14-25)
* Decoding Nick Fuentes (11-2-25)
* The Landscape of Emotional Sobriety (10-29-30)
* The Rise & Fall Of Air Supply (10-19-25)
* No Kings, No Results: How Elite Pride Replaced Real Progress (10-19-25)
* You Are An Important Soldier In A Great War (9-7-25)
* The Revolt Of The Masses (8-31-25)
* The Covenant of Ashwood (8-24-25)
* If you can’t trust central bankers, then who can you trust? (8-23-25)
* Why Is The Elite Media Singing From The Same Hymnal About The Trump-Putin Summit? (8-17-25)
* Why Do Smart News Operations Sound So Uniformly Dumb So Often? (8-16-25)
* Nobody Is Coming (8-10-25)
* When Elites Restrict Our Speech, It’s Because They Love Truth, Freedom & Democracy (8-3-25)
Category Archives: Orthodoxy
Orthodox Jews Are Moving To South Florida
I know a lot of Orthodox Jews who moved from LA to south Florida. None of them have moved back. By contrast, many Californians move to Austin and about half of them move back within five years. Over the last … Continue reading
Why Golf Courses Sometimes Divide Up On Race
Some of my Jewish friends love golf because everyone on the course has WASP manners. Steve Sailer writes: One of the more reasonable outlets for President Trump’s Edifice Complex is his interest in Washington D.C.’s three municipal golf courses. Trump … Continue reading
Everything Is Bullshit vs Orthodox Judaism
I revere David Pinsof’s evolutionary psychology (Everything is Bullshit) and I revere Orthodox Judaism. They both make sense to me but to the world, they contradict. How do I navigate this challenge and how do I explain it? Gemini says: … Continue reading
Status Closure In Orthodox Judaism
My 25 years in Orthodox Judaism has been intense — both intensely challenging and intensely rewarding and intensely painful (usually caused by my compulsion to isolate and aggrandize myself). For people like me who’ve had a taste, no other way … Continue reading
There’s No Mitzvah To Fight Anti-Semitism
Orthodoxy never turned fighting antisemitism into a commandment. The system is inward. The priorities are Torah, mitzvot, family, community, and keeping the group intact. Survival is achieved through boundary maintenance, not moral crusades. When an Orthodox Jew fights antisemitism today, … Continue reading
Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America
Aaron Renn reviews sociologist Christian Smith’s new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America in the new December issue of First Things magazine: Smith offers a useful new lens: obsolescence. Religion is now obsolete—that is, … Continue reading
Religion vs LOL Nothing Matters
I love my Orthodox Judaism and I love the work of David Pinsof (“Everything is Bullshit“). How do I reconcile my loves? I feel that Torah helps me see through the shtus (nonsense). ChatGPT says: Orthodox Judaism and David Pinsof’s … Continue reading
The most powerful systems of epistemic closure in America today
Written with ChatGPT: Epistemic closure = when a community defines what can and cannot be questioned, and enforces consensus not through argument but by gatekeeping who counts as credible. Stephen P. Turner’s point is that closure is inevitable; the question … Continue reading
The most significant practical differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.
Grok says: The practical differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews—primarily Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and unaffiliated Jews—stem from their approaches to Jewish law (halacha), tradition, and daily life. Orthodox Judaism adheres strictly to halacha as interpreted by rabbinic authorities and codified … Continue reading
How do Orthodox rabbis compete for status?
Grok says: Orthodox rabbis compete for status in a mix of subtle and overt ways, rooted in a world where authority hinges on scholarship, charisma, and community clout—less a free-for-all brawl, more a chess game with unwritten rules. It’s not … Continue reading