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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:
- Anthony Lane: A Life
- Author Philip Gourevitch
- Joseph Telushkin: The Accountant’s Son Who Taught America Judaism
- Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph (2012)
- WP: As Christians are attacked in Israel, government shows little concern
- Life as a Haredi Jew
- Moral Philosopher Derek Parfit
- The Life of George Gilder
- Richard Posner’s Legal Pragmatism
- The MLA: A History
- The Great Delusions in History Theory
- Allan Bloom: The Teacher Who Wanted Your Soul
- The Great Delusions in Literary Theory
- William K. Wimsatt Jr.: The Judge of Evidence
- Larissa MacFarquhar: The Woman Who Slows Judgment Down
- Stanley Fish: A Biography
- Hortense Spillers: The Grammar Lesson
- Paul Gilroy: A Biography
- Walter Benn Michaels: A Biography
- Harvey Cox: The Theologian Who Bet on the City
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Author Archives: Luke Ford
Decoding Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen
Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen is best decoded as a high-efficiency recruiter operating for the Orthodox outreach alliance, optimized for belief repair rather than elite coherence. Start with the alliance niche. Kelemen works inside kiruv. That alliance competes not … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Decoding Menachem Kellner
Per Alliance Theory: Menachem Kellner is an internal boundary enforcer operating inside the Maimonidean rationalist alliance. Kellner aligns himself with a historically elite but institutionally fragile coalition. Medieval Jewish rationalism. Rambam over Kabbalah. Universal intellect over ethnomysticism. Philosophy over myth. … Continue reading
Posted in Maimonides
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Orthodox Judaism’s Leading Apologists
From age eight to eleven, living at Avondale College in Australia, I had to read thirty to forty pages of Christian apologetics every day but the Sabbath and then type a one-page summary to show my father I had understood … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, Judaism, Marc B. Shapiro, R. J. B. Soloveitchik, R. Natan Slifkin
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The Different Ways Fundamentalist Jews & Christians Struggle With Modernity
Fundamentalist Christians navigate the same alliance pressures as the Haredi world. Both groups face a modern world that claims jurisdiction over their sacred texts. However, their strategies for managing epistemic defeat differ based on their relationship to the Bible and … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Christianity, Haredi, Hasidim
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Decoding Rabbi Moshe Meiselman
Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Moshe Meiselman is not just making an epistemological claim for the truth of Torah. He is enforcing alliance boundaries. Start with the coalition he serves. The Haredi yeshiva world depends on a specific authority structure. Torah … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway Add To The Jeffrey Epstein Hysteria
Michael Tracey writes: Look at this madness from (bizarrely) one of the most popular podcasts in the country. @karaswisher declares how wonderful it is that Prince Andrew was arrested for some vague “public misconduct” offense, because he “should’ve been arrested … Continue reading
Posted in Jeffrey Epstein
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Left Behind: A Modern Orthodox Reckoning
The group chat name changed first. “Har Etzion Carpool.” “Alon Shvut Moms.” “Jerusalem STEM Cohort 2027.” You noticed because you were still in them. At first it felt like logistics. Flights. Containers. “Does anyone have a good moving company?” “What’s … Continue reading
Posted in Modern Orthodox
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Marc Shapiro’s Jarring Opinions
Marc Shapiro is a great scholar, and he also has strong opinions on a wide range of matters. He’s like a fast bowler in cricket who’s also handy with the bat. He’s the Mitchell Starc of Orthodox Judaism. He’s 67 … Continue reading
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro
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The Inner Lives Of American Intellectuals
Here are the strongest books on the antinomic, institution-dependent, self-negating character of the modern secular American intellectual. Non-fiction The Intellectuals and the Powers – Edward Shils This is the core text on the antinomic posture. Shils argues that intellectuals are … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
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The Best Of The Modern Orthodox Have Been Steadily Moving To Israel
Mate, it feels like the bloody rapture has happened and I’ve been left behind. The best of American Modern Orthodoxy keep moving to Israel. Not the median synagogue member. The people with unusually high human capital: serious Torah learners, fluent … Continue reading
Posted in Modern Orthodox
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