by Matthew Friedman | May 4, 2022 | Essays, Politics
I can hear my mother’s voice: “You shouldn’t say things like that.” Nancy Salter, who died 16 years ago, was a brilliant writer and editor, a social worker, and an activist committed to social justice and the project of making the world a better place. She was also a...
by Matthew Friedman | May 1, 2022 | Books, Essays, Jewish Life
The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest Felix Salten, translated by Jack Zipes, with illustrations by Alenka Sottler Princeton University Press “Two leaves fell from the great oak tree at the edge of the meadow.” Thus begins the eighth chapter of Felix...
by Matthew Friedman | Apr 15, 2022 | Essays, Features, Jewish Life
Beth Cole had not yet decided whether or not she would make a brisket for the Passover Seder this week. “I was going to bring the brisket, but I think I’m going to do a roast chicken, because I have to cook for, like, ten people,” she says. Besides, it isn’t her...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 6, 2021 | Essays
I wept when my mother died in the winter of 2006, and when my father died in the spring of 2012. And I cried when Nelson Mandela died eight years ago, on 5 December 2013. I felt as if I had lost a close friend, a mentor, a member of my own family. I was puzzled by the...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 5, 2021 | Essays, History, Jewish Life
This is the second part of a two-part series. Read part one here. I. The Chanukiah I post a photo of my chanukiah in social media each night of the Festival of Lights, before joyfully scrolling through my feed to look at all the pictures my friends had posted of their...
by Matthew Friedman | Nov 30, 2021 | Essays, History, Jewish Life
I. The Story My childhood memories of Chanukah* are suffused with feelings of warmth and certainty, as my brother and sister, our parents, and I would gather around the Chanukiah (the Chanukah menorah) to light the festive lights for eight nights. We would chant the...