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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: YICC
Whatever Happened To Pico-Robertson?
Joe emails: I grew up in Pico Robertson – I was probably the first customer of Nagilla Pizza. When you went there on a saturday night, it was the who’s who of YICC (already the self important place it is), … Continue reading
Posted in Pico/Robertson
Tagged icarly, isfahan iran, Jewish Journal, orthodox jews, persian family, YICC
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Bombing At Shul
Growing up a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, I got used to speakers being introduced with a little prayer. You can see some of that action here at Loma Linda last Sabbath. Christians will often say a word of prayer along the … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Beth Jacob, conversion to judaism, David Klinghoffer, Dennis Prager, distinctive personality, pre marital sex, sephardic educational center, YICC, Young Israel
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The Mob Rule Of LA’s Orthodox Rabbinate
On his radio show May 20, 2010, Dennis Prager says: “I want to tell you a story here. Every kid, for reasons we can never explain as adults, remembers something forever that didn’t even happen to the kid… Every one … Continue reading
Posted in Meir Kin, R. Avrohom Union, Rabbis, Union
Tagged bank of america, Beth Jacob, Dennis Prager, greg baer, mob rule, orthodox rabbinate, teenage kid, YICC
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What Is Your Shul’s Vision?
What is Shalhevet’s vision? It is the one Orthodox high school school in Los Angeles where boys and girls receive the identical education. Its mixture of Lawrence Kohlberg and Orthodox Judaism is highly un-Orthodox. I’ve never met a Shalhevet student … Continue reading
Posted in Beth Jacob, Bnai David-Judea, YICC
Tagged Beth Jacob, lawrence kohlberg, orthodox judaism, orthodox shul, simon wiesenthal center, YICC
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‘Levi, Have You Seen My Lapdancers?’
I often get off the 10 Freeway at Robertson Blvd and have to pass by this den of iniquity — Skin, a strip club at 3388 Robertson. Here’s a strip club right next door to the burning heart of Modern … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Aish HaTorah, Beth Jacob, David Klinghoffer, orthodox conversion, samson raphael hirsch, YICC
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Pico-Robertson In The 1960s
It was populated with faux yeshivas to get Orthodox Jews out of the Vietnam draft. By 1980, there were only two Orthodox synagogues in the community — Young Israel of South Beverly Hills and Beth Jacob. There wasn’t a kosher … Continue reading
Posted in Beth Jacob, Bnai David-Judea, Hancock Park, Haredi, Harkham Hillel, Pico/Robertson, R. Kalman Topp, YICC
Tagged Abner Weiss, Beth Jacob, orthodox shul, orthodox synagogues, rabbi maurice lamm, vietnam draft, YICC, Young Israel
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Two Men Shot Outside North Hollywood Shul
The Los Angeles Times reports: A gunman approached a North Hollywood synagogue this morning and shot two people before fleeing, according to police, who are investigating the attack as a hate crime. The shooting occurred at 6:20 a.m. at the … Continue reading
Posted in Adat Yeshurun, Jews
Tagged Adat Yeshurun, clash of civilizations, jewelry district, Los Angeles Times, morning prayers, north hollywood, sephardic synagogue, sylvan street, YICC
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How’s The Kollel Working Out At Beth Jacob?
On the surface, it looks like a mismatch. A source told me in September of 2007: This Kollel will be housed at Beth Jacob — one of the shuls whose black-hatted offspring, as you report, now attend AT. How does … Continue reading
Posted in Beth Jacob, Haredi
Tagged Beth Jacob, Kollel, orthodox institution, rabbi gradon, yeshiva world, YICC
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Name Those Who Study Torah In Pico-Robertson
I’m talking about people who study it every day in the original. And I am not talking about rabbis or anybody who gets paid to study Torah. There are three at Bnai David-Judea (about 430 member families) — Shep Rosenman, … Continue reading
Posted in Pico/Robertson, Torah
Tagged Beth Jacob, daf yomi, marc shapiro, persian jews, torah study, YICC
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A New Modern Orthodox Blog
About a year ago, I said to Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, "When are you getting your own blog?" He seemed pretty overwhelmed at the time and I did not expect him to post one any time soon. I got an email … Continue reading
Posted in Modern Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Pico/Robertson, R. Yosef Kanefsky, Rabbis
Tagged Aish HaTorah, Beth Jacob, ketuba, rabbi yosef, shuls, YICC
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