- https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback
"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: yom kippur
Life Is Brand New!
I left my home of over 14 years Sunday. It was shattering. I felt sad and helpless. I felt tired and sweaty. My back hurt. I had great trepidation about the future. I drove a few blocks to crash in … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Alexander Technique, funny email, hovel, looking at the sky, thinking about my life, yom kippur
Comments Off on Life Is Brand New!
Orthodox Heretics
Heshy Fried describes different types of Orthodox skeptics who live the life but don’t necessarily believe Orthodox: Frum for marriage: You’re married and you don’t believe in Judaism, but for some reason you still want your kids to go to … Continue reading
Posted in Heshy Fried, Orthodoxy
Tagged belief in god, frum, goy, heretics, yom kippur
Comments Off on Orthodox Heretics
Spitting On Yom Kippur
In a March 10, 2009 lecture on Leviticus 19: 26-28, Dennis Prager said: When I was in yeshiva, a very very pious rabbi who on Yom Kippur was so careful not to drink that he would not even swallow his … Continue reading
Posted in Dennis Prager, Happiness
Tagged Dennis Prager, leviticus 19, rabbi, saliva, yom kippur
Comments Off on Spitting On Yom Kippur
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Debates Dennis Prager
This was done March 24, 2008 at Nessah synagogue in Beverly Hillls, a nominally Orthodox Persian shul. Dennis Prager: “I grew up in an East European Hasidic shtibble in New York. The rabbi was from Romania. Ultra-Orthodox. In order to … Continue reading
Posted in Dennis Prager, Shmuley Boteach
Tagged 17th street, Dennis Prager, honor god, rabbi shmuley boteach, shul, yom kippur
Comments Off on Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Debates Dennis Prager
Yisroel Pensack: Some Thoughts on the Sentencing Hearing of Sholom Rubashkin
A sentencing hearing in the financial fraud case of former Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse manager and Lubavitcher chassid Sholom Rubashkin is scheduled to begin tomorrow (Wednesday) in federal court in Iowa. There is a concept in Judaism that each Shabbat “blesses,” … Continue reading
Posted in Agriprocessors, Chabad, Ethics, Fraud, Judaism, Kashrut, Torah, Truth, Yisroel Pensack
Tagged animal slaughter, chillul Hashem, conduit for blessing, confession, egypt, federal court, Iowa, lubavitcher, lubavitcher rebbe, Pesach sheni, Rashi, sacrificing animals, second Passover, sentencing hearing, shabbat, Sholom Rubashkin, wages, weights and measures, yom kippur
Comments Off on Yisroel Pensack: Some Thoughts on the Sentencing Hearing of Sholom Rubashkin
I Hate Waiting For My Calls To Be Returned
It’s Saturday night. Where is she? Does she have cheating on her mind? Is she between another girls’ thighs? I hate waiting for my calls to be returned. I feel unloved. As every minute ticks by, I feel less important. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged accurate perception, manly man, pursuer, shabbat, unloved, yom kippur
Comments Off on I Hate Waiting For My Calls To Be Returned
Staying Inside For Yizkor (Memorial Prayers)
Rav Yosef Kanefsky writes: Over the last couple of years, I have been urging everyone in shul to remain inside the sanctuary for Yizkor – even those who, thank God, have both parents alive. I have made this request in … Continue reading
Posted in Orthodoxy, R. Yosef Kanefsky, Synagogue
Tagged decorum, memorial prayers, missing the boat, sayers, shul, yom kippur
Comments Off on Staying Inside For Yizkor (Memorial Prayers)
Nasty Flu
I got sick last Sunday, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and came home after just an hour at shul, barely enough time to daven and look at the pretty girls. I spent the next three days in bed and … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged last sunday, nasty flu, pretty girls, rosh hashanah, yom kippur
Comments Off on Nasty Flu
Dull Books For Yom Kippur
I afflicted my soul on Yom Kippur by reading a couple of very dull, poorly written academic books on Judaism. The first one had the exciting title: Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism. I gave up on … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Germany, Judaism
Tagged academic books, conversion to judaism, dull books, gideon klein, hebrew prayers, jewish modernism, jewish neighbors, jim zorn, orthodox rabbi, public identity, rabbi robert, reform rabbi, washington redskins, yom kippur
Comments Off on Dull Books For Yom Kippur
Cock Flavoured Soup
A friend emails: "I saw this soup mix in Shop Rite yesterday–if it hadn’t been erev yom kippur, and in a Jewish neighborhood where maaris eyin is a problem, I would have grabbed some."
Posted in Food
Tagged friend emails, jewish neighborhood, shop rite, soup mix, yom kippur
Comments Off on Cock Flavoured Soup
