by Matthew Friedman | Mar 21, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Commentary
I could never have imagined that I would find myself “behind the lines.” The phrase was always a feature of the kind of military adventures that I consumed as a boy; the First World War ace forced down behind the German Trenches, Jan Kubis in Alan...
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 | 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....
by Matthew Friedman | Jun 6, 2023 | Commentary, Essays, Jewish Life
I laughed so hard that I passed beer through my nose. The occasion was the first episode of Saturday Night Live’s 14th season which aired just days after the High Holy Days in 1988. Hosted by Tom Hanks, whose movie Big had been a surprise summer blockbuster, with the...