The most painful part of my life over the past 15 years has been the loss of significant relationships.
None was felt more keenly than my break with Dennis Prager.
In December of 1997, I decided I wanted to write online about Prager and publish on my website an unauthorized biography of him.
As I mentioned my plans to do this, two of my closest friends in Los Angeles (Laurie Zimmet and Chris Donald) said that if I proceeded with my plans, they would no longer be my friend.
I proceeded with my plans. They were true to their word.
We haven’t been friends since.
We will never be friends.
Though I was considerably gentler to Prager than most people I write about, that meant nothing to Prager and my critics (I’m not arguing that it should mean anything, I’m just describing, not prescribing). It was my simple act of writing about him without his authorization that caused them to excommunicate me.
Not only did I lose my friendship with Dennis Prager, I lost virtually every friend I had in common with Dennis (including Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and Dr. Stephen Marmer — not that I was close friends with them, but I was friendly with them, and then our break went public and brutal in early 2005, but that was only a bubbling up of anger that had been subterranean since 1998 because of what I’d done to Dennis and this time Rabbi Mordecai Gafni was just an excuse for us to settle this score while claiming it was for the sake of Heaven, and even after it became plain that Gafni was who I said he was and he was not who Telushkin and Marmer claimed, that meant nothing to us, our break was permanent).
(I first took up journalism in my sophomore year at Placer High School. In the fall of 1982, I researched a critical article about the football team. Friends warned me that I’d be ostracized if I published the article. I did and I was. My best friend at school, Shannon Anderson, did not speak to me for a year.)
In early 1998, I engaged in a painful online feud with Chris (and to a lesser extent with Laurie). None of us came out looking good.
In the heat of the battle, I did some stupid things. I got a handful of facts wrong about Dennis (none significant). I published several of Prager’s essays online without permission, violating his copyright.
On March 4, 1998, Dennis Prager wrote to the now defunct Dennis Prager Email List:
Of what I have seen [of my postings], some are fine and some are offensive.
I felt infuriated by Prager’s response. It was so pompous and condescending. Of course, it is easy to understand why Dennis would be annoyed with me and most fair-minded people I know who are aware of the conflict feel much more sympathy for Dennis than for me.
Heck, I feel more sympathy for Dennis than I do for myself.
Here’s an excerpt from the Jewish Journal’s Aug. 3, 2007 profile of me:
Ford credits his Jewish conversion to the wisdom of talk-radio host Dennis Prager, whom he heard speaking about Judaism when Ford was bed-ridden with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after dropping out of UCLA. The two began talking regularly by phone, but then Ford bought the domain www.DennisPrager.net and used it to lambast the man he loved like a father. (That info has all been moved over to LukeFord.net.)
Prager has since completely distanced himself.
"He was neither a pupil nor a friend," Prager said in a brief interview. "I think I appealed to something good in him at some point, and I hope I did. But I don’t know."
When I read that, I smiled.
Most fair-minded people view my actions towards Dennis Prager as betrayal. I view them as being true to my art.
I have more peace these days about the loss of these significant relationships because I understand that given who I was, I could not have acted but as I did, that I chose this life of mine (to adapt an insight from the movie "Analyze This"), and that while my choices destroyed most of the relationships important to me, they allowed me to do important work and to find new friendships.
As Barry Manilow said, "I made it through the rain and found myself respected by the others who got rained on too…"
Oh – thinkin’ about all our younger years. There was only you and me. We were young and wild and free.
Now nothin’ can take you away from me. We been down that road before… But that’s over now… You keep me comin’ back for more…
So I’m listening to Prager’s happiness show from Dec. 14. Here’s how it is described on his website: "To be happy, you have to learn not to take things personally. If too many “slights” offend you, you need to adjust your sensitivity level. In order to maintain relationships with family and friends, this is especially important."
On the show, Prager says: "People who are hurt at the drop of a coin, are offended…no matter what happens… You walk on egg shells around them. You are so worried that you will say something wrong. You will have a wrong look and they will be personally offended…"
That’s how I felt towards the end of 1997 in my relationships with Prager and company.
Dennis: "Allen [Prager’s producer Allen Estrin] has this charming trait… He doesn’t say goodbye. He just hangs up. So what?
"The ability to say ‘So what?’ is a fantastic ability…to not be miserable… I don’t take it personally."
Prager talks about his good friend Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and how neither of them are quick to take offense.
Dennis: "Always give your friends the benefit of the doubt. Once you can’t any longer give your friend the benefit of the doubt, the person is no longer a friend."
"I so trust him [Telushkin], and he so trusts me, that it’s almost impossible…"
"If you take everything personally, you can’t have friends."
"The people who walk around gratuituously offended and gratuituously hurt can’t have friends…"
"I’ve been stunned for 30 years lecturing…and it’s usually a woman who’ll get up and say, ‘I was offended by something you said in your lecture.’
"Why are you offended? We disagree. Why are you offended?"
"How come I almost never feel personally offended? It takes so much… I can’t even… I don’t know. I guess it would have to happen from somebody I dearly loved who turned against me. But it’s not in my vocabulary. I’m called names all the time. I’m not personally offended. It comes with being a public figure who takes positions. You’re going to be called names. To be offended because someone took a position you don’t agree with?"
