by Matthew Friedman | Apr 15, 2022 | Essays, Features
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
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
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...
by Matthew Friedman | Sep 11, 2021 | Essays
My first memory of that day is of the sky. It was clear and bright, and as I walked along de Terrebonne Street to Concordia University’s Loyola campus, I marveled at the deepness of the blue. I could still see the sky outside the windows of the computer lab in the...
