by Matthew Friedman | May 16, 2021 | Commentary, News Analysis
After speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the telephone last week, President Biden affirmed that the State of Israel “has the right to defend itself” against rocket attacks from Gaza. Taking the president’s comments as confirmation that the...
by Matthew Friedman | May 2, 2021 | Commentary, Jewish Life, Politics
I learned this week that Senator Elizabeth Warren is a “vicious” antisemite. The news was shocking. I have had my differences with the senator and her particular brand of progressivism in the past, but I never imagined that she would promote an atavistic “Jew-hate”...
by Matthew Friedman | Apr 21, 2021 | Commentary
The courtroom was silent when the jury returned from its deliberations and delivered its verdict: guilty. Tensions had been rising across the country as the trial of this murderer-in-uniform reached its climax. Advocates for the defendant had objected to the...
by Matthew Friedman | Apr 4, 2021 | Commentary
Easter falls on the last day of Pesach this year, and the symmetry seems so perfect in my bicultural home. My Irish-American spouse has arranged an impressive Easter basket full of goodies that evoke the Catholic syncretism that brought bunnies and eggs into...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 24, 2021 | Commentary
This week began with the news that the United States had surpassed 500,000 COVID-19 deaths. It seemed surreal, almost uncanny; the figure was just another mundane number in the accounting we have watched ticking off steadily – and then exponentially – over the last...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 17, 2021 | Commentary, Politics
At noon on Wednesday, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. will take the oath of office on the Capitol steps and become the 46th president of the United States. Millions of Americans will breathe a sigh of relief that four years of division, violence, and injustice perpetrated...