Linda Matchan is a Boston journalist and documentary filmmaker.
Linda Matchan
By Linda Matchan
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Culture Why I decided to give my dog a ‘bark mitzvah’ — a report from Coco’s coming-of-age ceremony
The ritual reminds us of the joy animals bring to people's lives and the spiritual connection between man and beast
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News Known as the ‘Queen of Shuls,’ it’s missing just one thing: Jews
The synagogue is filled with relics and remnants of immigrant life, a magnificent fresco, a huge, ornate ark and 1,109 seats
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Culture Former White House speechwriter now singing a different tune in Boston
Joe Resnek's first album, '1,' reflects his roots in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a town formerly nicknamed 'Little Jerusalem'
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News After being stabbed, this Boston Chabad rabbi is launching a rabbinical school
Rabbi Shlomo Noginsky has raised $1 million and will train eight rabbis a year - 'one for each stab.'
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News What a Jewish editor can learn answering letters to Santa
Here’s what they don’t tell you about being Santa Claus: it can be heart-wrenching. Every year, the Boston Globe receives as many as 17,000-plus letters addressed to Santa Claus. This year, the paper put me, a Jewish journalist who was a reporter and editor there for 36 years, in charge of writing about them. “How…
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News Remembering Izzy Arbeiter, the Holocaust survivor honored by Germany
If ever there was someone who had cause to be embittered, it would be Izzy Arbeiter, who died Friday at the age of 96. He was 14 when the German occupied his town in Plock, Poland in 1939. Soon came the ghettos, then the torturous goodbye to his parents and little brother who would be…
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News A Boston Jewish leader earns high praise amid lawsuits and allegations of a ‘toxic culture’
Rabbi Marc Baker, the newish head of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, seemed to be everywhere this summer. At a vigil in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood, denouncing the stabbing of a Chabad rabbi. At a media event for the New England Holocaust Memorial, with the governor of Massachusetts and mayor of Boston. At a downtown…
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News Facing illness or death? Call Ron Hoffman, ‘the hippie ALS guy’
When my late husband David Israel was diagnosed with ALS in 2010, I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever cope. Someone in his neurologist’s office handed me a manual called the “ALS Caregivers Guide.” There were sections for “Drooling,” “Choking,” and “Feeding Tubes.” The last one was “Saying Goodbye.” “How will I possibly handle this?” I…
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