- https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback
"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 Shmuley Boteach
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a celebrity-broker and attention arbitrageur whose core function is to convert mass media visibility into personal authority while remaining only loosely accountable to any single Jewish alliance. He is not a … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad, Shmuley Boteach
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Decoding Rabbi Manis Friedman
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Manis Friedman is a desire-reframing enforcer whose role is to make strict Orthodox norms feel emotionally inevitable rather than merely obligatory. He is not a halakhic authority. He is a psychological compliance architect. Here … Continue reading
Posted in R. Manis Friedman
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Manis Friedman
Decoding Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi was a controlled-exit architect whose life’s work was to design a soft landing for Jews whose loyalties had already slipped beyond the enforcement capacity of Orthodoxy. He was not trying to save … Continue reading
Posted in R. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Decoding Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh is a radical sovereignty mystic whose function is to re-sacralize Jewish power itself by fusing Kabbalah, nationalism, and charismatic authority into a closed, high-commitment sub-alliance. He is not doing kiruv. He is … Continue reading
Posted in R. Yitzchak Ginsburgh
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh
Decoding Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan was a meaning-restoration specialist whose function was to prevent alliance collapse among intellectually curious, spiritually dissatisfied Jews by re-enchanting Orthodoxy without surrendering its authority structure. He was not a kiruv enforcer. He … Continue reading
Posted in R. Aryeh Kaplan
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
Decoding Rabbi Daniel Landes
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Daniel Landes is a legitimacy transposer whose function is to relocate Orthodox authority from inherited power structures into procedural credibility and moral restraint, without exiting the Orthodox alliance. He is not trying to seize … Continue reading
Posted in R. Daniel Landes
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Daniel Landes
Decoding Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi
ChatGPT says: Per Alliance Theory: Yosef Mizrachi is best understood as a high-pressure boundary enforcer and defection-deterrence specialist operating in the kiruv ecosystem. He is not trying to persuade gently. He is trying to collapse choice. Here is the alliance … Continue reading
Posted in R. Yosef Mizrachi
Comments Off on Decoding Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi
Rabbis Are Rarely Gurus
Rabbis are rarely gurus. They usually have little in common with the gurus discussed on the podcast Decoding the Gurus. The rabbinic role developed to do almost the opposite of what a guru does. Rabbis are interpreters, not originators. Their … Continue reading
Posted in Guru, Hasidim, Marc Gafni, R. Daniel Landes, R. Kook, R. Shlomo Carlebach, R. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Rabbis
Comments Off on Rabbis Are Rarely Gurus
Decoding The German Philosopher Hans Freyer
When it was convenient, Hans Freyer, like many of his peers, threw in his lot with the Nazis, and when most people hear that, they don’t want to know anything more. That’s how the world works. The winners write history. … Continue reading
Posted in Hans Freyer
Comments Off on Decoding The German Philosopher Hans Freyer
NYT: ‘Manhattan Hospital Ends Medical Treatment for Transgender Youth’
That headline is an outrageous lie. What NYU Langone Health ended is a specific specialty program. It did not stop treating transgender patients for ordinary medical needs. NYU Langone discontinued its Transgender Youth Health Program, which provided gender-related medical interventions … Continue reading
Posted in Trans
Comments Off on NYT: ‘Manhattan Hospital Ends Medical Treatment for Transgender Youth’