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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:
- Arynne Wexler: From the Trading Desk to the Stage
- Arynne Wexler: ‘Here’s What You Say to a Leftist Claiming Trump Broke International Law’
- I Test Four AI Chatbots With A Question – What’s the Average Somali IQ?
- Samuel Moyn: The Historian of Contingency
- The Hero System of George Soros
- Walter J. Ong and the Technology of the Word
- Bruno Latour: The Anthropologist of the Moderns
- Adam Tooze: A Historian of Material Power
- Quinn Slobodian: Historian of How Capitalism Is Governed
- Jamie Martin: Historian of Sovereignty, Empire, and the World Economy
- Strange bedfellows: the Alliance Theory of political belief systems
- Mordecai Finley and the Hero System of the Soul
- Looking for Lost Jews
- James Boyd White & the Legal Imagination
- Katrina Forrester: Climate Activist, Political Theorist, Intellectual Historian and Public Intellectual
- Michael Kammen and the Making of American Cultural History
- H. L. A. Hart: A Life in Law and Philosophy
- Robert Dahl, from Pluralist Optimism to the Problem of Economic Power
- If It Happened At All: The Hero System of David Wolpe
- Dark Idealism
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
Would You Invite Amalek To Your Shabbos Table?
A frum friend just invited me to bring Chaim Amalek to Shabbos lunch. I said he’ll come for dessert so long as the home is Amalek-friendly. Chaim Amalek: “Is the dessert uber-glatt Kosher? What are the midos and tznius of … Continue reading
What’s The Intellectual Condition Of Orthodox Judaism?
Ezra Glinter writes for the Forward about Marc B. Shapiro’s new book Changing the Immutable: All this could make for a hearty polemic against the Orthodox scholars, publishers and editors who are more concerned with enforcing ideological conformity than with … Continue reading
Orthodox Judaism’s Tortured Relationship with Facts
Frum Satire: Look, we’re not children anymore, let’s not pretend that Orthodoxy’s mesorah which goes back to Moshe Rabbainu is any less crooked than the Tail of the Dragon and let’s not pretend it doesn’t have a proportionately equal number … Continue reading
Orthodox Jews Hire Mexicans To Protest At Gay Pride Parade
Story. No wonder every major Jewish organization supports immigration amnesty for America, but not for Israel.
Lost In Inglewood
An Orthodox Jew tells me: My [teenage] daughter was lost the other night in Inglewood. What was she doing there? Registering people to vote? and was approached by two nice African American guys. They asked her the same question, and … Continue reading
Orthodox Jews And America’s Culture Wars
Elliot Resnick writes: Jews in pre-war Europe tended to fear fundamentalist Christianity. They knew that Christian fervor often led to expulsions, blood libels, and forced conversions. Indeed, when Russia’s Queen Elizabeth barred all Jews from her realm in 1742, she … Continue reading
Report: Rabbi Who Installed Hidden Cameras in Dorm to Open New Seminary
As I understand it, the rabbi is opening a new school and NCSY – where he worked before — needs to make a decision if they will work with him and let him into their programs. LINK: According to the … Continue reading
From Principles to Rules and from Musar to Halakhah: The Hafetz Hayim’s Rulings on Libel and Gossip by Benjamin Brown
LINK: Story from Professor Israel Ta-Shma: In the year 1873, when the Hafetz Hayim finished writing his book Hafetz Hayim on libel and gossip, he wished to publish it with rabbinical endorsements, as was customary. Since he also wanted to … Continue reading
Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc B. Shapiro II
I love this new book. Here are the spicy bits: * Aaron Wertheimer censored a passage in midrash “that discussed the sexual activity of the righteous in the world to come.” (Changing the Immutable, pg. 80) * The Conservative prayer … Continue reading
Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc B. Shapiro
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book for years. Surely it is the most anticipated Jewish book of 2015. When I checked last week, it was the top-selling Judaism book on Amazon.com. Changing the Immutable does not disappoint. It is chock-filled … Continue reading