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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:
- Karl Taro Greenfeld: The Brother, the Correspondent, the Fire
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- Why So Much Elite Enthusiasm For The Odyssey?
- Is There Any Realistic Way Of Unifying America?
- Scenes from the Chokepoint Economy
- Robert Putnam: The Man Who Counted What America Lost
- W. Bradford Wilcox: The Sociologist Who Tells America to Get Married
- Peter Moskos: The Cop Who Talks to People
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- Ryan Burge: The Numbers Man in the Empty Church
- Emily Oster: The Economist in the Delivery Room
- The Most Ridiculous Story Ever Told
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- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
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- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
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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Can You Retract a “Blood Libel”? Also: Itamar Mayor Speaks
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Pelosi’s Vultures
On his show April 6, 2011, Dennis Prager said: “I’ll never forget when I was a kid [nine years old]. There was a man who was a high school math teacher, Mr. Joe Salts. What a sweet man. A member of the synagogue. He was hit by a hit-and-run driver on the West Side highway. He was blinded. The synagogue took care of this man for the rest of his life.
“The impact it made on me watching my father have people over to the house to see how much will you give, how much will you give. I have tears in my eyes. But as the state gets bigger, he just applies at some agency and has a bureaucrat take down the details.”
“Here’s another victim of the big state in terms of goodness because they say, why should I take care of my neighbor? The government will.
“This man blinded in the auto accident. The man was a member of the synagogue. The biggest thing DeTocqueville noted was how many free associations Americans made. Because the government was weak, people had strong civil society.
“I remember being a member of the Simi Valley Rotary Club. It was all men. They would get together every week. These guys, almost none of whom were wealthy, they were hard-working middle class. And you know what they devoted every meeting to? What charity they would engage in. But as government takes over more and more of charitable work, what need do you have for these charities? But we need people to join societies. The bigger the government, the more atomized the society.”
Wednesday, April 06, 2011 Radio Show
20110406 – 1 Pelosi’s Values
Prager H1: Nancy Pelosi decries the fate of children and seniors in expressing her horror at the proposed Republican budget cuts for 2011. Thus it was, is and ever will be… With the Paul Ryan deficit reduction plan on the table, the parties have taken sides: the Republicans are serious about reducing the deficit. And what about the Democrats? Are they serious?
Wednesday, April 06, 2011 Radio Show
20110406 – 2 Male/Female Hour: Manning Up
Prager H2: Dennis talks to Kay Hymowitz, Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Her new book is Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011 Radio Show
20110406 – 3 Fingerprint Little League Coaches
Prager H3: In a NJ town, coaches and all other volunteers, now have to be fingerprinted. Fear of child molesters… President Obama is paling up to proven liar and race baiter, Al Sharpton, This demeans the Office… Dennis talks to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal about Wisconsin and the looming government shutdown…
Posted in Dennis Prager
Tagged Dennis Prager, dennisprager, high school math, manhattan institute, nancy pelosi, proven liar, race baiter, republican budget, school math teacher, west side highway
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Tropper lauds himself, again
Simshalom emails: “On his new nutty blog, Tropper “praises” himself and his new “sefer” — read his post for yourself and think how he could have written and made up whatever he wanted in this new-fangled “shaylos and teshuvos” based on scripts only he had access to. He even claims it’s a “best seller” — Tricky Tropper can’t overcome himself. Thus spake Tropper.
“The guy has no shame. It’s Tropper’s horrid lack of syntax and disregard of spelling (at least he could’ve use “spell-check” — but Tropper posts from his BlackBerry while on the run.) He is still running in the race to become a bona fide “gadol” but he doesn’t get that he is in the dog-house with the fleas all over him!”
Posted in R. Leib Tropper
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The Monsters And The Idiot
Tuesday, April 05, 2011 Radio Show
20110405 – 1 The Monsters and the Idiot
Prager H1: Joe Klein of Time Magazine and Roger Cohen of the NY Times can’t distinguish between a Koran-burning nutball like Pastor Jones and the murderers in Afghanistan who slaughter innocent people … Dennis talks to David Dreier, Congressman from 26th district of California and chairman of the House Rules Committee about the pending government shut down.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011 Radio Show
20110405 – 2 Let Me Count the Ways
Prager H2: There are apparently many reasons why some Muslims slaughter people – not just Koran burning. A liberal Israeli artist was recently murdered in the West Bank by radical Muslims because he allowed men and women to act together in his plays… Congressional hearings expose the deep corruption in AARP. They’ll make billions from Medigap insurance premiums if ObamaCare goes into full effect… New York state has vastly expanded their educational bureaucracy while then student population has declined.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011 Radio Show
20110405 – 3 Ultimate Issues Hour: God Isn’t Happy
Prager H3: God looks around and sees a morally upside down world. On the one hand, people ignore Him and on the other, they do terrible things in His name. Dennis provides numerous examples of both and how they are related.
Monday, April 04, 2011 Radio Show
20110404 – 1 Great Transgendered Americans
Prager H1: Want to know why the state of California is in a freefall? Add this to the list. The legislature is anxious to pass a law mandating that students learn about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered Americans to US history. Great bi-sexual and transgendered Americans? Can you name any?
Monday, April 04, 2011 Radio Show
20110404 – 2 The Goldstone Travesty
Prager H2: The author of the Goldstone Report, the UN report that denounced Israel for targeting civilians in its Gaza war with Hamas, now admits he might have been too hasty in drawing his conclusions. This fool now regrets trusting terrorists to tell the truth. His pathetic retraction won’t undo what he’s done… The dean of Western scholars of Islam, Bernard Lewis, offers a sober assessment of the state of the Middle East.
Monday, April 04, 2011 Radio Show
20110404 – 3 First Hour Replay
Prager H3: Dennis has a speech in Sacramento tonight. Unfortunately, his Southwest Airlines flight was cancelled. Now he has to drive, necessitating an early departure from the show. Southwest had an incident with one of its planes over the weekend and has subsequently cancelled hundreds of flights. We replay the first hour from today’s show, an instant Best of Prager Hour.
Posted in Dennis Prager
Tagged david dreier, dennisprager, educational bureaucracy, house rules committee, insurance premiums, transgendered americans
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God Is Having A Tough Time In The Modern World
The more university education a person receives, the more likely he is to hold secular and left-wing views. The secular Left argues that this correlation is due to the fact that a college graduate knows more and thinks more clearly and therefore gravitates leftward and toward secularism. But if you believe that the average college graduate is a clear and knowledgeable thinker as a result of his or her time at university, I have more than one bridge to sell you. A radio talk-show host for 29 years, I long ago began asking callers who made foolish comments what graduate school they had attended. It takes higher education to learn that America and Israel are villains, that men and women have essentially the same natures, that human nature is good, that ever-larger governments create wealth, etc.
A second reason God is not doing well among Westerners these days is that many members of the Jewish and Christian clergy decided that their primary role was not to advocate their religion’s moral and religious standards, but rather (1) to make congregants comfortable (“Don’t call me ‘Pastor’ [or ‘Rabbi,’ or ‘Father’], call me Jerry”) and (2) to promulgate the values they learned at their secular left-wing universities.
A third reason God is not doing well is that most of the men and women who are products of this secular left-wing education (meaning a large majority of Western men and women) are theologically, intellectually, and emotionally ill-prepared to deal with all the unjust suffering in the world. I will never forget a Swedish pastor’s reaction to the 1994 sinking of the Estonia, a ferry that capsized in the Baltic between Estonia and Sweden leaving 852 passengers and crew dead. He said he could not believe in a God who allowed such injustice to take place.
This pastor spoke for vast numbers of modern Western men and women. The existence of so much unjust suffering in the world has strongly contributed to their rejecting belief in God. And undoubtedly the devastation caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami has further reinforced many individuals’ rejection of God.
Posted in Dennis Prager
Tagged 1994 sinking of the estonia, christian clergy, Dennis Prager, radio talk show, radio talk show host, talk show host
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How Much Sexual Misconduct Can A Rabbi Get Away With?
Should it be one strike and you’re out? I think so. A rabbi is not just a rabbi to a specific congregation, he’s a rabbi to all of the Jewish people. If he can’t keep his pants zipped up, he shouldn’t be a rabbi. One case of abusing his position to get laid and he should stop teaching Torah publicly.
Educating Converts To Orthodox Judaism
They have to understand that a community that strives for closeness and closed-ness, a tight-knit society that builds a wall to the secular world (of varying heights, depending on each community), will present obstacles to joining. We will ask personal questions about your upbringing; we will play Jewish geography; we will treat you like family.
You may find this invasive, especially when some people are overly nosy. You may feel uncomfortable because you don’t have what you think are the “right” answers. You may not want to reveal your life’s story to strangers or at every Shabbos meal you attend. Just remember that this is not a unique experience for converts. Ba’alei teshuvah and people with unusual backgrounds — foreign accents, small town upbringing — face the same challenge.
You have to learn two skills. The first is blending in. Even those whose racial characteristics preclude fitting entirely into the American Orthodox community can blend in with their behavior. If you dress, speak and act like a member of the community, you will find you are treated much more like a member. You also have to learn how to deflect questions you don’t want to answer. In a perfect world, no one will ask you rude questions. Until then, have answers ready like “Someday I’ll give you the whole story” or “It’s a long and private story.” You can prepare joke answers or change the subject.
Posted in Conversion, Orthodoxy
Tagged alei teshuvah, foreign accents, gil student, jewish geography, orthodox judaism, rude questions
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Parashat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33)
I discuss the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Rabbs every Monday at 7pm PST on my live cam and on YouTube.
This week’s we study Parashat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33).
Rabbi Wikileaks
Curious emails: I say start up a Rabbi Wikileaks. Expose all their foibles. Who’s eating pork? Who’s using electricity during the Sabbath? Who got drunk on the Dennis Prager cruise? Tell us, Luke. Tell us all.
Posted in Rabbis
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Rabbi Marc B. Shapiro Spoke At Beth Jacob Shabbos
I’m kicking myself for missing this.
A source says: Heard Marc Shapiro speak at BJ at the 3rd meal, first time I’d seen or heard him.
I thought he was one of the more interesting I’ve heard in many years
1) mainly because of refreshing honesty (so absent by nature in religion)
2) and also sees BOTH sides, not as biased as I expected
(altho perhaps a result of which crowd he was talking to)
3) also quite talented, knowledgeable and voluble (the words flow out from him almost effortlessly; very few have this, the other one who comes to mind, perhpas oddly, is R Hershel Schachter)
3b) which was more inspiring to me since he is relatively young, and in the religious or Orthodox world it seems to me that it has been difficult to find anyone of great talent (there was an article a few years back how the Reform and Conservative also feel this about their own leaders)
4) I was especially surprised to see that despite not even studying at YU he has a superior knowledge of the Chareidi world (including a rare penetrating understanding of it, or “bekiyut” PLUS “iyun”) and also has seemingly visited Israel many times or knows the scene there firsthand.
I’m a bit surprised that he (a) knows all this (plus (b) is even INTERESTED in it, or (c) even takes it seriously, given his views. I am finding it increasingly difficult to take the Chareidim seriously, unfortunately.
I only maintain my interest in order to HELP the situation and many innocent, brainwashed Chareidim, a huge topic which I doubt he is involved in but which many are, such as Uri Regev, Yaron Yadan and also various good Chareidim acting to help them stop their mass shnorring and make a living, as the Talmud so vehemently advocates. Plus other aspects, like reducing child molestation, helping them cope with the outside world, teaching them skills, etc.
I saw myself in Israel as an ISRAELI, not American, as to Torah study standards, NOT in character, though. I considered the Americans in my yeshivah as bringing down the entire level, as did everyone else. They were mostly 1st and 2nd yr, altho the long-time ones also were behind in Hebrew and rarely good scholars. Of course, I now look at the Israelis as far more exteme and closed-minded. As to secular studies, the American Chareidim also know very little, the very opposite of the vehement emphasis of the Vilna Gaon.
Posted in Marc B. Shapiro
Tagged Beth Jacob, Marc B. Shapiro, marc shapiro, refreshing honesty, religion 2, torah study
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