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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:
- Tanner Greer
- Economist Tyler Cowen
- Richard Reeves: A Life in Institutions
- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
- Moira Greyland
- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
- Strange Bedfellows in the Academy: Alliance Theory and the Straussian Schism
- Tournier on Desmond Ford
- The Fence and the Blessing: How Jews Have Thought About Gentiles
- Tournier on Luke Ford
- Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid
- An Alliance Theory of Antisemitism
- Tournier on Cinema Paradiso and Desmond Ford
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)
Category Archives: Chabad
How Two Guys Lost God and Found $40 Million
From Bloomberg: I’ve come to their tax-haven sex mansion to hear their improbable story—how two sons of an ultrareligious Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn witnessed the birth of a new kind of lending, made a fortune, and then saw it all … Continue reading
CHILD ABUSE ALLEGATIONS PLAGUE THE HASIDIC COMMUNITY
Newsweek: While there is no evidence that child abuse is any more likely to occur in ultra-Orthodox schools than in public or secular institutions, stories like Reizes’s—an alleged abuser sheltered and victims unwilling to talk for fear of losing the … Continue reading
Happy New Year
* Post: The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Nissan Mindel, during the 70’s would often find himself in the Rebbe’s office. Once, he was in the office during the eve of the secular New Year. When the twelve o’clock arrived, the … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
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Boca Raton victim says hate crime was ‘nerve-wracking’
It’s rarely a good idea to start a fight just because somebody insulted you. It’s even more rarely a good idea to start a fight over an insult when you are a rabbinical student. I’ve had people flip Heil Hitler … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Chabad
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Visiting The Rebbe
JTR: Secular Jew Howard Jacobson wrote in 1993 about his experiences while waiting to see the famous Orthodox Lubavitcher rabbi, Menachem Schneerson, in New York City. For a decade, the rabbi gave out a dollar (symbolic charity) to each of … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
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Going Modern Orthodox
A Chabad friend who’s gone Modern Orthodox says the hardest part is all the women (who let themselves go after marriage) want to hug and kiss you. A traditional Jew does not touch women (outside of his wife and family). … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
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A Torah Perspective on National Borders and Illegal Immigration
By Nochum Mangel and Shmuel Klatzkin: If the heavens and earth and all of mankind are created by one G‑d, what does the Torah, G‑d’s instruction manual, tell us about One World–ism? Does it recognize national boundaries as legitimate? In … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad, Culture, Immigration
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A Lecture On The Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff says: “Having spent a lot of time around Gedolei Yisrael (great rabbis), the more intelligence you have, the more critical you are. You have to learn a lot of mussar to remove that negative outlook to be … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad, R. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff
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Sima Yumash – An Orthodox Victim Of Childhood Sexual Abuse – Tells Her Los Angeles Story
Jewish Community Watch (JCW) names the abuser as Rabbi Sholom Dovber Levitansky: Sholom (Dovber) Levitansky has been added to the Wall of Shame due to his alleged sexual abuse of a number of female minors. Multiple victims came forward and … Continue reading
Posted in Abuse, Chabad, Debbie Fox, Jewish Journal, R. Avrohom Union, R. Berish Goldenberg, R. Gershon Bess, R. Yosef Shusterman, Rabbis, RCC, Santa Monica
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The Tefillin & The Pork Sandwich
Last night, I heard Rabbi Moshe Greenwald (Chabad in downtown Los Angeles) tell stories about putting tefillin on a secular Israeli who was holding a pork sandwich in his unwrapped hand, and of Chabadniks wrapping tefillin on Jews outside a … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
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