by Matthew Friedman | Feb 15, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Commentary
I am not really a flag guy. I don’t like them. They flatten complex ideas, communities, and identities into simple, two-dimensional images and have historically served as instruments of discipline that evacuate politics and ideas of any depth of meaning. They are a...
by Matthew Friedman | Oct 8, 2023 | Commentary
I have been watching the events in the State of Israel with horror. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand Israelis have been killed in Hamas’s attack, hundreds more Gazans have died under Israeli missiles and “bunker-buster” bombs. And the State of Israel’s Defense Minister...
by Matthew Friedman | Sep 24, 2023 | Essays, Jewish Life
True atonement is difficult because we are not always aware of our sins against others, and from whom to ask forgiveness. The Tefilah Zaka meditation goes, “I know that there is no one so righteous that they have not wronged another,” and that is my point of departure...
by Matthew Friedman | Aug 14, 2023 | Commentary
I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I was going to spend most of my day trying to contact an unresponsive multi-billion-dollar media corporation and trying to save The Typescript from the predations of late-capitalist corporate colonialism. I thought I...
by Matthew Friedman | Jun 16, 2023 | Commentary, Essays
My first impression of the United States was… not great. I remember watching scraps of paper packaging blow unobstructed down the street in the late-summer breeze, corner trash bins overflowing twice their volume, crumbling concrete, cracked bricks, and peeling paint....
