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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:
- Jean Raspail: The Consul of Lost Causes
- Michel Houellebecq: A Life
- 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
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 Isadore Twersky
Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Isadore Twersky was the architect of the high-level intellectual ceasefire. He rejected the idea that a scholar must choose between the “sacred” world of the yeshiva and the “profane” world of the university. He argued that … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Marc B. Shapiro, Stephen Turner
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Decoding Historian Moshe Idel
Per Alliance Theory: Moshe Idel treats the history of Jewish mysticism as a wild, unmanaged forest rather than a manicured garden. He breaks the monopoly of Gershom Scholem by proving that Kabbalah never had a single “orthodoxy” or a single … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Decoding Bible Scholar Richard Elliott Friedman
Per Alliance Theory: Richard Elliott Friedman treats the Torah as the physical record of a series of ancient political mergers. He argues that the Pentateuch is not a single voice but a library of competing visions that were forced together … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Bible
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Decoding Historian David Biale
Per Alliance Theory: David Biale functions as the historian of the Jewish collective psyche. He treats the great themes of Jewish life—power, eros, and blood—as a series of masks that the community wears and discards as its needs change. His … Continue reading
Posted in David Biale
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Decoding Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Per Alliance Theory: Professor Ishay Rosen-Zvi acts as the primary anatomist of the rabbinic body. He treats the rabbis as masters of social engineering who used law to define the physical and metaphysical limits of the person. His work proves … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Decoding Talmud Scholar Christine Hayes
You don’t find many non-Jewish scholars of Talmud. Written with AI: Per Alliance Theory: Christine Hayes is a boundary clarifier who destabilizes by precision rather than attack. Her core alliance move is to show that rabbinic Judaism defined itself in … Continue reading
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Decoding Historian Shaye J. D. Cohen
Written with AI: Per Alliance Theory: Shaye J.D. Cohen is a chronicler of Jewish ambiguity. He moves the origin of Judaism from the realm of legend to the realm of history. His work argues that the boundaries of Jewish identity … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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Decoding Jacob Milgrom
Jacob Milgrom was a scholar of the priestly tradition. He moved the study of Leviticus from the periphery of biblical scholarship to the center of ethical inquiry. His work challenges the older view that priestly law consists of dry, mechanical … Continue reading
Posted in Bible, Leviticus, R. Jacob Milgrom
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Decoding Bible Scholar Roy Gane
My dad and Roy’s dad were sometimes friends and sometimes theological enemies and sometimes both at the same time. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone more disciplined than Roy Gane. He got his PhD in Bible under R. Jacob … Continue reading
Posted in Adventist
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Decoding Michael Fishbane
Per Alliance Theory, Michael Fishbane is a guild architect, not a communal pastor. His primary alliance is the academic study of Judaism. He helped professionalize Jewish textual scholarship in America, especially the study of inner biblical interpretation and midrash as … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory
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