Matthew Gindin is a journalist, educator and freelance writer located in Vancouver, BC. He is the Pacific Correspondent for the Canadian Jewish News, writes regularly for the Forward and the Jewish Independent and has been published in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Religion Dispatches, Kveller, Situate Magazine, and elsewhere. He also writes on Medium from time to time.
The short answer is no. He was a mensch, not to say the two things are mutually exclusive. The long answer follows. On May 21st, a celebratory concert in Israel for Yom Yerushalayim featured an English-Hebrew rendition of “Hallelujah,” by far Leonard Cohen’s most misused song (if you don’t count the millions of questionable hook-ups…
On Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) we celebrate an indigenous people displaced from their land by colonizing Empire (a succession of Christian or Muslim empires, to be specific) returning home, gaining self-determination, and then regaining access to the lost city that had been holy to them for 3,000 years. But of course the history is not…
Conversations about the Israel-Palestine conflict have long been maddeningly predictable. “Pro-Israel” and “Pro-Palestinian” voices line up against each other — categories in themselves crazy-making, as if treating violent conflicts like football tournaments makes any sense. Discussions quickly degenerate into a battle over who is ultimately to blame, with different historical narratives thrown at each other…
Radiohead is scheduled to play a gig in Tel Aviv July 19, as the Forward reported in February. Several of Radiohead’s contemporaries have asked the band “to think again” about playing the gig, writing an open letter on the website Artists For Palestine-UK. The letter includes the likes of Roger Waters, Thurston Moore, TV on…
Lately, I’ve had nukes on the mind. I began reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel this week because I think we are now living in one, and I need to plot strategy. All of this was exacerbated Monday afternoon when a senior North Korean official said that the U.S had created “a dangerous situation in which…
As Earth Day 2017 approaches (it falls on April 22 this year, which also happens to be Shabbat), where are we as human beings? Where are we as Jews? My answer will probably not surprise you — we are focusing on the wrong things, and we are not doing enough to avert catastrophe. The human…
The violent ejection of a passenger from a United Airlines flight on Monday has received international attention. It has been condemned not just as bad business (which it surely is) but as a symptom of American class warfare and the creeping callousness of American corporate culture. As horrified as I was by the treatment of…
Marvel Comics has released a statement saying that it will be taking “disciplinary action” against one of its artists after the shocking discovery of hidden anti-Semitic and hard-line Islamist references in an X-men comic book. “X-Men Gold #1” was released last Wednesday. It had been well-received until controversy erupted over the weekend when the references…
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