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Michael Moynihan Joins Tablet As Columnist

Introducing the Righteous Gentile; first column out today

by
Bari Weiss
September 07, 2012
Moynihan reporting in Libya in 2011.(Courtesy of Michael Moynihan)
Moynihan reporting in Libya in 2011.(Courtesy of Michael Moynihan)

Exciting news, just in time for Rosh Hashanah: Michael C. Moynihan, a regular contributor to Tablet, today becomes an official columnist. Sing Hallelujah!

Few journalists are as tireless and intrepid as Moynihan. Readers will likely remember him best as the reporter who uncovered science writer Jonah Lehrer’s missteps in these pages earlier this summer.

But what marks Michael’s work even more than his scoops is his fresh, surprising, often contrarian analysis of current events—both those that are controversial, and those that are not but should be. Though he is not a member of the tribe, Michael is an obsessive-compulsive observer of Jewish affairs. He consistently sees stories within the Jewish world that deserve a wider audience, and stories within the wider world that the Jewish community ought to pay more attention to. That’s why we’re calling his column The Righteous Gentile.

In his first official column, published today, Michael takes on politicians’ hyperbolic rhetoric—and their propagation of junk history this campaign season. In accusing opponents of the “the Big Lie,” Moynihan shows how Democrats and Republicans are unwittingly reviving one of the Nazis’ favorite debating points. Read it here.

Moynihan was previously managing editor of Vice and senior editor of Reason. He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s book review. He lives with his wife—who also happens to be a Tablet illustrator—and daughter in Brooklyn, where they assiduously avoid the Park Slope Food Coop.

Follow him on Twitter @mcmoynihan. Please join me in welcoming him—and wishing him a shana tova.

Bari Weiss is the founder and editor of The Free Press and host of Honestly with Bari Weiss.