Author Archives: Mordecai Martin

It Does Not Matter

I wrote this piece two years ago on a different platform, and have decided to share it here on the anniversary of Allende’s death. Today, on the 45th anniversary of the United States backed military coup that toppled his democratically elected socialist government and ended his life, I read the last public speech of PresidentContinue reading “It Does Not Matter”

On Home: Letter to Alexis, a German friend, June 2020

Dear Alexis, Well, as it turned out, I owed you a letter about home anyway! So let us talk home and house and heimat und die unheimlich.  When I was a boy I read a wonderful children’s book called the Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Pinkwater, in which Mr. Plumbean lives in a beautiful houseContinue reading “On Home: Letter to Alexis, a German friend, June 2020”

On Jews, Looting, and Whiteness

As the George Floyd protests spread across the country and the world, my social media flooded with protest news, infographics about police brutality, and calls for solidarity. But there was a note of hesitation, primarily from older white Jews, uncles and bubbes and synagogue friends, commenting on my friends’ posts. They wanted to support theContinue reading “On Jews, Looting, and Whiteness”

Amy Cooper in the Ramble

Currently on twitter, and maybe elsewhere, a video is circulating of a white woman named Amy Cooper. Cooper was walking her dog without a leash in the Ramble in Central Park, when a Black man named Christian Cooper approached her to ask her to leash her dog. At this point, according to Christian Cooper andContinue reading “Amy Cooper in the Ramble”