Upper middle class country club Jew, later a zionist, educated in liberal east coast institutions all the way up, married into billions and now part of one of the richest 100 families in the U.S.
From HuffPost:
Friedman’s great wealth is a frame for his window on the world. The Washingtonian reports that “his annual income easily reaches seven figures.” In the Maryland suburbs near Washington, three years ago, “the Friedmans built a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million,” on a parcel of more than seven acres near Bethesda Country Club and the Beltway.
Throughout his journalistic career, Friedman has been married to Ann Bucksbaum — heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. When the couple wed back in 1978, according to The Washingtonian article, Friedman became part of “one of the 100 richest families in the country.”
From Wiki:
From an early age, Friedman, whose father often brought him to the golf course for a round after work, wanted to be a professional golfer. He played a lot of sports, becoming serious about tennis and golf. He caddied at a local country club and in 1970 caddied for the legendary Chi Chi Rodriguez when the US Open came to town.
Friedman is Jewish. He attended Hebrew school five days a week until his Bar Mitzvah, then St. Louis Park High School where he wrote articles for his school’s newspaper. He became enamored of Israel after a visit there in December 1968, and he spent all three of his high school summers living on Kibbutz Hahotrim, near Haifa. He has characterized his high school years as “one big celebration of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War.”
Friedman studied at the University of Minnesota for two years, but later transferred to Brandeis University and graduated summa cum laude in 1975 with a degree in Mediterranean studies. While at Brandeis he roomed with psychologist Steven Fox. Friedman taught a class in economics at his alma mater Brandeis University in 2006, and was a commencement speaker at Brandeis in 2007.
After graduating from Brandeis, he attended St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford on a Marshall scholarship, earning an M.Phil. in Middle Eastern studies. He names Professor Albert Hourani among his important academic influences.
Friedman’s wife, Ann, is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics. They were married in London on Thanksgiving Day.
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Yup just another good ole boy.
I believe hlencken3’s mother-in-law was a close friend of Friedman’s mother and lived in the same condos. Friedman’s mother was heartbroken over her son’s anti-Americanism and naive attitude about Israel’s enemies.