by Matthew Friedman | Feb 7, 2022 | Commentary, Politics
They came in their thousands – by the tens of thousands, if you believe them – belching diesel fumes and blasting air horns. The Freedom Convoy of big tractor-trailer rigs, semis, and private pickup trucks and vans converged on the Canadian capital of Ottawa from...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 27, 2022 | Commentary, Jewish Life
I spent much of the day rereading Art Spiegelman’s brilliant graphic novel Maus. It felt like the right thing to do after the Mcminn County, TN schoolboard voted unanimously to remove it from the eighth-grade curriculum. “There is some rough, objectionable language in...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 23, 2022 | Commentary, Jewish Life
President Biden was absolutely clear in his comments following the hostage-taking incident at the Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, TX last weekend. “We will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country,” he said. “That is who we...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 7, 2022 | Commentary, Politics
On 2 January 2016, a band of armed anti-government extremists occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. Ammon Bundy, the Stetson-wearing leader of a right-wing militia with the anodyne name Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, had been addressing an...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 24, 2021 | Fiction, Jewish Life, Short Story
Daylight had already begun to fade in Bailey’s Falls as Mina Fuchs arrived home from her school Christmas party. The winter sun reflected off the lake, and the sky glowed in shades of copper and pink in a bright band squeezed beneath a bank of clouds. Christmas Eve...
