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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:
- 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
- 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
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: Sephardim
Decoding Porat Yosef – Jerusalem
Per Alliance Theory: Porat Yosef Yeshiva is the prestige restoration project of Sephardi Torah elites after centuries of status loss inside the Ashkenazi dominated yeshiva world. Start with the alliance problem. Pre-modern Sephardi Judaism produced legal giants, philosophers, communal leaders. … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Sephardim, Yeshiva
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Decoding Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel
ChatGPT says: Through Alliance Theory, the Sephardic Temple on Wilshire in Westwood is best understood as a diasporic prestige-retention institution whose core function is to preserve Sephardic Jewish identity at elite scale without forcing either strict Orthodox closure or full … Continue reading
Posted in Sephardim
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Who Are The Mizrahim?
Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ around 110, Sephardim around 97 and Mizrahim around 92. Comment: The Middle Eastern Jews are better described as Mizrahi, leaving Sephardic to describe the smaller group of Jews descended from the Spanish and Portuguese … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Sephardim
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How Smart Are The Sephardim?
Average IQ estimates for Ashkenazi Jews range from 105 to 120. Average Sephardi IQs are about 97 and Mizrahi Jews average 92. The average white IQ is 100, East Asian IQ is 105, Hispanic-American IQ is 90, and African-American IQ … Continue reading
The greatest drug kingpin in history was an Orthodox Jew who attributed his business success to his careful observance of Jewish law
According to the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia entry on David Sassoon: “his business, which included a monopoly of the opium-trade, extended as far as Yokohama, Nagasaki, and other cities in Japan. Sassoon attributed his great success to the employment of his … Continue reading
JJ: Will Israel’s achievement gap stall the start-up nation?
The Jewish Journal writes: Jewish Israeli students scored 133 points higher than Arab Israeli students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests in 2012. And even within the Hebrew-speaking group, students from strong socioeconomic backgrounds scored 100 points … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, IQ, Israel, Sephardim
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Mizrahim Vs Sephardic Vs Ashkenazi Life Results In Israel
Mizrahim (Jews from Arab lands) average IQ is about 90, Sephardic average is about 97, Ashkenazi average is about 112, hence their disparate life results and lack of integration. These basic facts of life are missing from this long Mosaic … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, Israel, Sephardim
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Kissing Hands
About a decade ago, I saw a friend at Bnai David-Judea. I shook his hand and he immediately kissed the hand that I had just shaken. I was moved. Over the next few months, I saw some old Sephardi men … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, Personal, Sephardim
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The Last Of The Pure Sephardic Poskim
In a 2008 lecture for Torah in Motion on Rabbi Ben Zion Uzziel (former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel), history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: He’s one of the last of the few Sephardic poskim (deciders of Jewish law). The … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, Marc B. Shapiro, Orthodoxy, R. J. B. Soloveitchik, Sephardim, Yeshiva
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When In Doubt, Call Your Opponents Racists
Whenever I hear the charge of “racism” these days, I’m immediately suspicious because I’m so used to the accusation being tossed around without evidence. I’m also tired of Jews using their putative Orthodox status to lobby for non-Orthodox positions. I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Ashkenazim, Haredi, R. Brad Hirschfield, Sephardim
Tagged Conservative Judaism, jewish theological seminary, lengthy bio, liberal jews, orthodox judaism, orthodox rabbi, rabbinic ordination
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