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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)
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Tag Archives: lubavitch
Yisroel Pensack: Happy Chanukah!
This is not a Lubavitcher chossid, obviously. The branches of Chabad-Lubavitch menorahs are straight and diagonal — not like this: or this: but like this: and this: and this:
Posted in Chabad, Hanukkah, Yisroel Pensack
Tagged alaska, happy Chanukah, lubavitch, menorah, Wilshire Grand Hotel, zebra
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Yisroel Pensack: 2 Years after Mumbai Massacre, Chabad and Slain Rabbi’s Parents Battle in Court
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement thrives on favorable publicity, but this story on The New York Times homepage doesn’t qualify as that: MUMBAI, India — Days ahead of the second anniversary of a deadly terrorist attack on this bustling city, a Jewish center … Continue reading
Posted in Brooklyn, Chabad, Hasidim, Israel, Judaism, New York Times, Terror, Yisroel Pensack
Tagged battle in court, denomination, Eliran Russo, holtzberg, india, jewish center, legal dispute, lubavitch, massacre, Mumbai, Nariman House, renovation of building, slain rabbi's parents
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Rabbi and His Wife Killed In Mumbai
From Chabad.org: Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed during one of the worst terrorist attacks to strike India in recent memory. Jewish communities around the world reacted with shock to the loss … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
Tagged chabad house, gavriel, holtzberg, lubavitch, rivka, toddler son
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Chabad Book store to close down because of $2 Million internal embezzlement?
From FailedMessiah: Noam Sharvit of Globes reports: Officers from Israel Police Central Region Fraud Unit and Israel Tax Authority investigators have arrested the director of Chabad Youth Organization in Israel, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Ahronov, the nonprofit organization’s (NPO) accountant, and … Continue reading
Posted in Chabad
Tagged embezzlement, four men, fraud unit, gideon, globes, irregularities, israel police, lubavitch, magistrates court, money laundering, nonprofit organizations, npo, police central, private accounts, rabbi yosef, s books, shekels, signatories, tax fraud, youth organization
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Beit Shemesh Extremist Rabbi Shabsi Wigder Extremely Ill
This announcement in Hebrew asks for your prayers. Wigder is not from the Karlin Stolin sect. (They are moderates, politically and religiously speaking.) Bleich, his son-in-law, is from that sect. Wigder hung around Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld, who was the Rosh … Continue reading
Posted in Shabsi Wigder
Tagged azman, boarding school, Brooklyn, chesed, chicago illinois, chief rabbi, chief rabbis, dov, extremist, hebrew, jewish city, jewish day school, jewish orphanage, jewish revival, JTA, karlin, lubavitch, magazine focus, magen avot, prayers, predilections, rabbi bleich, rabbi shlomo, rabbinical ordination, rabbinical studies, religious organizations, rosh hayeshiva, semicha, social services network, stolin, ukraine, ukrainian community, welfare society, wikipedia, yakov
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