Author, Painful Joy: A Holocaust Family Memoir

This week, Ira spoke with Max Friedman, author of Painful Joy: A Holocaust Family Memoir (published by Amsterdam Publishers). In this revealing episode of “Ira’s Everything Bagel,” Max talks about his history growing up with his parents, who were Holocaust survivors; why he distanced himself from their experiences; how his grandson sent him on a journey to find out about his parents, to not see them as just survivors, but as human beings; how he started his journey to research his parents; and the surprising things he found. 

Early in his career, Max held a variety of positions in the communications field, ranging from newspaper and magazine journalism (with articles featured in the The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, TV Guide, and elsewhere) to serving as director of editorial services at Channel 13, New York’s public television station as well as the unit publicist for “Bill Moyers Journal.”

At Bristol-Myers Squibb for two decades, as vice president of communications, he was primarily responsible for the company’s global internal communications efforts. 

Max also worked in publishing as an advertising copywriter with Macmillan, in the government (as a spokesman and editor at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), in education as a grant proposal writer for the City University of New York and in public relations, as an account executive with Ruder & Finn (now Ruder Finn).