Thomas Friedman

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Thomas Loren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author.

He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a week columnist for The New York Times.

He has written extensively about foreign affairs, international trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental problems.

He has been chastised for his ardent support for Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman, as well as his early endorsement of the Iraq war and unregulated trade.

Early life and education

Friedman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 20, 1953, as the son of Margaret Blanche (née Phillips) and Harold Abe Friedman. Harold, vice president of a ball bearing business, died of a heart attack in 1973 when Tom was nineteen years old. Margaret, a homemaker and a part-time bookkeeper who worked in the United States Navy during WWII and studied Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin, was a homemaker and a part-time bookkeeper. Margaret died in 2008 as a Senior Life Master duplicate bridge player. Shelly and Jane Friedman are Friedman's two older siblings.

Friedman, whose father often took him to the golf course for a round after work, aspired to be a professional golfer from an early age. He played a lot of sports and became serious about tennis and golf. He caddied at a local country club and caddied for professional golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez when the US Open came to town in 1970.

Friedman is Jewish. He attended Hebrew school five days a week before his Bar Mitzvah, then St. Louis Park High School, where he wrote articles for his school's newspaper. After a visit to Israel in December 1968, he became enamored with Israel, and he spent the three summers on Kibbutz HaHotrim, near Haifa. His high school years have been dubbed "one big celebration of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War."

Friedman attended the University of Minnesota for two years, but later moved to Brandeis University and earned a degree in Mediterranean studies in 1975. Friedman continued Arabic studies at The American University in Cairo, where he graduated in 1974 from its Arabic language unit (ALU). Friedman taught a class in economics at Brandeis in 2006 and was a commencement speaker there in 2007.

He earned a M.Phil. after graduating from Brandeis. Middle Eastern studies are among the findings.

Personal life

Ann (née Bucksbaum), Friedman's wife and a native of Marshalltown, Iowa, is a scholar and a native of Marshalltown, Iowa. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics. Matthew Bucksbaum, the granddaughter of real estate developer Matthew Bucksbaum, who Friedman describes as his "best friend." They were married in London on Thanksgiving Day 1978 and now live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland. They have two daughters, Orly (b.) and Jonny (b.). (B. 1985) and Natalie (b. ) 1988 (and later):

In the 2016 race, Friedman endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States and also supported Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 primaries. In the 2020 US presidential race, Joe Biden supported him.

Friedman is on the board of directors of Planet Word, a Washington, D.C.-based private museum dedicated to language.

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Journalism career

After completing his master's degree, Friedman joined United Press International's London bureau. He was sent a year later to Beirut, where he lived from June 1979 to May 1981 while covering the Lebanon Civil War. In 1981, he was hired by The New York Times as a reporter and later re-dispatched to Beirut at the start of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting was given to him by his coverage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre (shared with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post). He also received the George Polk Award for foreign reporting alongside David K. Shipler.

Friedman was drafted to Jerusalem in June 1984, where he served as the New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief until February 1988. He received his second Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting this year, citing his coverage of the First Palestinian Intifada. He wrote a book entitled From Beirut to Jerusalem, describing his Middle East experiences, which received the 1989 US National Book Award for Nonfiction.

During President George H. W. Bush's administration, Friedman interviewed Secretary of State James Baker. Friedman became Bill Clinton's White House correspondent for the New York Times following his 1992 aspirations. He began writing more about foreign policy and economics in 1994 and moved to The New York Times' overseas affairs columnist the following year. Friedman received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2002 for his "clarity of vision," based on extensive research, when speaking out about the global consequences of the terrorist threat."

Friedman met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in February 2002 and advised him to make a comprehensive effort to end the Arab-Israeli conflict in exchange for the return of refugees as well as an end to Israel's territorial occupations. At the Beirut Summit in March, Abdullah introduced the Arab Peace Initiative, which Friedman has since firmly supported.

Friedman was given the 2004 Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime achievement, and the same year was proclaimed to the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

In May 2011, The New York Times announced that President Barack Obama "has sounded out" Friedman on Middle East issues.

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