Samuel G. Freedman

Samuel G. Freedman, journalism professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, is a religion columnist for the New York Times. His books include Jew Vs Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry (Simon & Schuster) and Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (HarperCollins).

  • Days of Their Lives

    Posted on 03/01/09

    On a drizzly and drunken New Year’s Eve in 1978, I twisted two bunches of my shoulder-length hair into curls hanging alongside each ear. Then I popped a thrift-shop fedora atop my head. Thus attired, I threaded my way through the revelers in Times Square, tugging on the sleeve of one after another, and asking in my best Yiddish accent, which actually was pretty lousy, “You are Jewish?”

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