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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:
- 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
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
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)
Tag Archives: orthodox shuls
Rabbi Kalman Topp – Prodigy
Joe emails: By the age at which he spent time at Har Etzion, I am thinking he is about 37-38. He works the room like a rabbi in his 50s. I think that Orthodox shuls should give up with the … Continue reading
Posted in R. Kalman Topp
Tagged har etzion, mental health specialists, orthodox rabbi, orthodox shuls, pastoral questions, talmid chacham
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Technical Difficulties
Friday. 4 pm. All over my blog in the widgets section, I’m getting this: “Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, ‘shortcode_unautop’ was given in /home/lukef0rd/lukeford.net/blog/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 166” Anyone have a suggestion? [email protected]. This … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged array function, orthodox conversion, orthodox judaism, orthodox shuls, plug ins, shul
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Wisdom Comes From The Children
Let us learn from the young because they know so much about life and they have so much wisdom to share with us. If children feel strongly about religious egalitarianism, well then, shouldn’t we follow them? Talk show host Michael … Continue reading
Posted in R. Yosef Kanefsky
Tagged michael medved, orthodox shuls, rabbi yosef, rabbinate, religious teacher, teacher leader
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Shaarei Tefillah Ripped Apart Over Meir Kin Divorce Dispute?
Mark emails: Dear Luke: Regarding your article about Shaarei Tefila, Youve been mislead once again. There are about 5-6 disgruntled members of Sharrei Tefila who just come for the Shabbos Kiddush every week and dont even participate in the services. … Continue reading
Posted in Aaron Kin, Divorce, Meir Kin, R. Nochum Kosovsky, Rabbis, RCC, Shaarei Tefila, Synagogue
Tagged agunah, brother aaron, gabbai, orthodox shuls, rabbi yosef, shul, tefillah
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What’s The Big Difference Between LA And NY Orthodox Shuls?
There are hardly any single women in Los Angeles Orthodox shuls while New York shuls are filled with them. The Upper West Side of Manhattan has the biggest Orthodox singles scene in North America. Los Angeles? Not so much. In … Continue reading
Posted in Dating, Orthodoxy
Tagged jewish day schools, orthodox shuls, orthodox women, upper west side, women graduates
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What’s The Moral Upshot Of Orthodox Judaism?
I’ve been asking Orthodox rabbis if simply knowing that someone was Orthodox told you anything about their ethics. The rabbis say no. What if you knew the person davened three times a day? Does that say anything about their ethics? … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Orthodoxy
Tagged business ethics, orthodox jewish life, orthodox jews, orthodox judaism, orthodox rabbis, orthodox shuls, religion and business
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Synagogue Website Reviews
Joe emails: I have a deviant fascination (is there any other kind?) with monitoring synagogue websites. Some are quite useful. More important than the content is the theme of the site and what it tells you about the shul. WWW.YICC.ORG … Continue reading
Posted in YICC
Tagged big leaguer, lithuanian jews, old joke, orthodox shuls, synagogue website, synagogue websites
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Rabbi Gabe Elias Knows The Pulse Of Mogen David
Rabbi Elias at Mogen David is a canny operator. He thinks things out many steps ahead of the pack. He’s skilled at anticipating underhanded behavior. He can read it from a mile away. He can out-maneuver you if he wants … Continue reading
Posted in Gabe Elias, Mogen David, Pico/Robertson
Tagged Beth Jacob, Mogen David, muskat, orthodox shul, orthodox shuls, sephardic minyan
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In 20 Years, The Haredim Will Dominate Pico-Robertson
Los Angeles has little culture of Torah learning (except among the Haredim aka the traditional Orthodox). There are only two first-rate Modern Orthodox Torah scholars in Los Angeles — rabbis Yehuda Bukspan and David Rue. L.A.’s Modern Orthodox shuls don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Abner Weiss, Anshe Emes, Beth Jacob, Bnai David-Judea, Modern Orthodox, Nachum Sauer, Orthodox Union, Orthodoxy, R. David Rue, R. Kalman Topp, R. Yehuda Bukspan, YICC
Tagged Beth Jacob, marriage prospects, orthodox shuls, rabbi search, torah scholar, torah scholars, touro college
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