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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: baal teshuva
Posts Along The Way
I read this book by Rabbi Gil Student over Shabbos. I don’t know much, but the book to me has a yeshivish feel, a Litvish feel, a right-wing Modern Orthodox sensibility. It feels like it was written by a baal … Continue reading
Posted in Hirhurim
Tagged baal teshuva, chasam sofer, gil student, prayer groups, wpgs, yeshivish
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Returning To Life
From DonnaBurstyn.com: The first time he attempted suicide, he was ten years old. His parents had divorced. His father was a classic hippie. His mother was more reserved. He came from an Orthodox yeshiva-going family but his mother and aunt … Continue reading
Posted in Donna Burstyn
Tagged baal teshuva, different path, ill mother, kaddish, mourner, younger generation
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Marrying A Convert
It does not make sense to me why somebody Orthodox from birth would want to marry a convert or a baal teshuva (penitent). I figure the more you have in common, the better. There tends to be a naive wide-eyed … Continue reading
Posted in Conversion, Orthodoxy
Tagged baal teshuva, heshy, jews in america, orthodox conversion, orthodox jew, orthodox judaism, yom tov
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Yisroel Pensack: Dead Rebbe As Mashiach
I was invited to a wedding and reception for the son of a San Francisco Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi/shaliach.
Posted in Chabad, Christianity, Orthodoxy, Yisroel Pensack
Tagged baal teshuva, chabad lubavitch, false belief, jewish religion, mashiach, wedding invitation
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I Am In Torah-Drunk Ecstasy
Go here for a link and code to download all the Torah you want for free from Torah In Motion. I’ve been downloading Marc Shapiro all morning. Dr. Shapiro tells a story of a secular Sephardic girl in Israel who … Continue reading
Posted in Hirhurim
Tagged baal teshuva, marc shapiro, orthodox judaism, ovadia yosef, torah in motion
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The F— Train To Brandeis
I just finished the 2005 book called "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels." On page 153, the author Hella Winston writes: "Brandeis…accessible to him only by commuter rail — or, he later learned, the "f— truck" from Harvard, named … Continue reading
Posted in Orthodoxy, Sex
Tagged baal teshuva, brandeis students, chicago study, conservative christianity, hang ups, libertinism, orthodox life
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I’m Live On My Cam With A BBW Who Wants To Share Religious Rituals With Me!
I’m chatting with 18yo Emma from Ireland and the publisher of a Jewish newspaper in the MId-West. Join the conversation. Jeff emails: "I tried for a few minutes to read through the pdf files about c-cubed india, which sounds more … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged baal teshuva, breaking news, chat room, cheney, cleves, credit cards, dayan, economic reasons, Emma, executive branch, experiences, gangster, ireland, Jewish Journalism, jewish life, jewish paper, layout designer, lol thanks, mid west, midwest, nbsp, newhouse, pdf files, person operation, poignant example, porn star, queen, rabbi, Rabbis, six months, steinsaltz, sum total, talmud, time reporter, virtue
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Rabbi Avrohom Union’s Background
He’s a baal teshuva. He was not raised in Orthodoxy. He came to it as an adult under the influence of Rabbi Beryl Wein and others. Rabbi Union was in on the founding of Ohr Somayach. He came to Los … Continue reading
Posted in R. Avrohom Union
Tagged adult, baal teshuva, beryl, incarnation, Orthodoxy, rabbi, rabbinical council of california, relaxed attitude, wein, zeal
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