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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:
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: A Life 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
- The Self-Hating Jew
- The Alliance Theory in the Academy
- The Borrowed Robe: How Antisemitism Dresses in Each Age’s Virtue
- A Place For You
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
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)
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Category Archives: Conservative Judaism
The Refusal to Disappear
The valet line at Factor’s runs long on a weekday afternoon. Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (b. 1980) stands in it, a man ten years into writing and directing suspense and horror, a man with a certain amount of success behind him, … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism
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The Baker’s Son: Ed Feinstein and the Two Terrors
Ed Feinstein (b. 1954) grew up in the back of his parents’ bakery on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley. The oven ran before light. Bread came whether the customers arrived happy or grieving, whether the morning’s news … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism
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Holding Both Halves: The Intellectual Life of Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok was born Herman Harold Potok in the Bronx in 1929, the eldest child of Polish Jewish immigrants. His father Benjamin came out of Belzer Hasidic piety and survived the trenches of the First World War. The household held … Continue reading
Posted in Chaim Potok, Conservative Judaism
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Decoding Rabbi Saul Lieberman
Saul Lieberman spent his career as a scholar of the Jerusalem Talmud and the Tosefta. He occupied a central position at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he acted as a bridge between traditional Lithuanian yeshiva training and modern scientific philology. … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism, R. Jacob Neusner, R. Saul Lieberman
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Conservative Judaism 2017: ‘God Is Without Boundaries’
The Hebrew word for holiness, kadosh, means “separate” or “boundary.” The essence of Judaism is boundaries between Jew and gentile, between the Sabbath and the other days of the week, between man and women, human and animal, adults and children, … Continue reading
Posted in Beth Am, Conservative Judaism
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Conservative Values
(JTA) — The Jewish Theological Seminary joined other Jewish Conservative groups in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal against a presidential move that allows schools to decide who may enter gender-segregated bathrooms. On Thursday, JTA wrote in a statement that it … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism
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Yisroel Pensack: New York City Board of Health Vote Scheduled Today on Requiring Informed Consent for Direct Oral-Genital Suction During Infant Circumcision
The New York Times reports: …part of the circumcision ritual, known in Hebrew as metzitzah b’peh [direct oral-genital suction], … is still commonplace in parts of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community but is rare in other branches of Judaism. The city estimates … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad, Circumcision, Conservative Judaism, Germany, Health, Modern Orthodox, New York, New York Times, Yisroel Pensack
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Sacramento’s Mosaic Law Congregation
By the end of 1989, I determined to convert to Judaism, but I was not sure which denomination to choose. My hero Dennis Prager was non-denominational. He went to all types of synagogues. I decided to be like that. As … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism, Personal
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Yisroel Pensack: None Dare Call It Conservadox
Practically around the corner from where I live is a big old synagogue called Congregation Chevra Thilim that describes itself as “San Francisco’s oldest Orthodox congregation.” Chevra Thilim is currently undergoing a $1.6-million, months-long renovation, upgrade and expansion of its social hall building, which is … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad, Conservative Judaism, Conservatives, Dovid Eliezrie, Judaism, Modern Orthodox, Orthodoxy, San Francisco, Synagogue, Torah, Yisroel Pensack
Tagged "politically incorrect" blessings, $1.6 million, building on shabbos, burials, chabad lubavitch, congregation beth sholom, Congregation Chevra Thilim, Conservadox, David Kimel, gil student, kohanim, meis mitzvah, R. David Eliezrie, R. Shimon Margolin, R. Shlomo Zarchi, R. Yosef Langer, social hall, yetzer hara
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The Synagogue In America: A Short History by Marc Lee Raphael
This is a superb new book. I just picked it up at the library and I can’t put it down. It has lots of stories about Los Angeles in general and Pico-Robertson in particular. On page 95, professor Raphael writes: … Continue reading
Posted in Blacks, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Pico/Robertson, Reform Judaism, Synagogue
Tagged ashkenazic jews, marc lee raphael, milk of human kindness, reform rabbis, sephardic congregations, sephardic jews
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