[1] At Yale he studied with Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, and J. Hillis Miller.
Collaborating with Ted Gorelick, he edited a new English translation of Sholem Aleichem's monologues, published as Nineteen to the Dozen.
[6] With a secondary interest in Israeli art, he commissioned the jacket cover print, "The World of Sholem Aleichem," from the Russian-Israeli artist Boris Luchanski.
Recently he edited collections of Hebrew short stories in English translation by Etgar Keret[8] and David Ehrlich.
[9][10] Frieden has traveled repeatedly in Eastern Europe to explore the remnants of Jewish culture there, particularly in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland.
Frieden’s most recent research shows the significance of travel narratives in Hebrew literature, at the fault line between the Enlightenment and Hasidism.