Hillel Goldberg

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg is an American newspaper publisher, author, scholar of modern Jewish history, and student of the Musar movement. He is editor and publisher of the ''Intermountain Jewish News'' in Denver, Colorado, and an ordained rabbi.

Early life and education

Goldberg was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He later reflected on the independent streak of Jews in the West, including Denver, that shaped him. Goldberg began his journalism career as a student at George Washington High School, where he published ''Tempo'' magazine with Richard Gould. ''Tempo'' was featured in '' Time''.

Higher education

Goldberg attended University of California Berkeley, where he tutored minority children in music in Oakland, 1964-1965, and wrote on the Free Speech Movement for ''Frontier'' magazine. He completed his undergraduate degree at Yeshiva University, where he was a leading student activist, founding the university's chapter of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in 1965; tutoring for Head Start in Harlem 1965-1966; co-leading the effort to save the books at Jewish Theological Seminary after a fire in 1966; co-organizing the effort to send volunteers to Israel on the eve of the Six Day War in late May and early June 1967; and founding an underground student newspaper, ''Pulse'', in 1968. Goldberg earned a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.

Journalism

Goldberg became editor and publisher of the ''Intermountain Jewish News'' in 2017. He had previously served as executive editor. His mother Miriam Goldberg and father Max Goldberg published the newspaper before him (Miriam from 1972-2017; Max from 1943-1972). Goldberg’s weekly column �
View From Denver
�� is the longest-running column in Jewish journalism. He has won more Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism than any other person.

Goldberg has worked for the ''Intermountain Jewish News'' since 1966. From 1972-1975 he was its Jerusalem correspondent, then from 1975 to 1983 its Israel correspondent. Throughout, he wrote a weekly column, "The View from Jerusalem", for the ''Intermountain Jewish News'', and reviewed books for the ''Jerusalem Post''.

David K. Shipler, '' The New York Times'' correspondent in Israel at the time, later wrote of Goldberg in ''Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land'': "I sat over these questions bout the Sabra and Shatila massacres">Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre.html" ;"title="bout the Sabra and Shatila massacre">bout the Hebrew University in Jewish ethics and intellectual history. He was a religious man with a graceful, fine precision of compassion in his reasoning, and our long discussion brought a valuable clarity to my own thinking."

Goldberg's book ''Israel Salanter: Text, Structure, Idea'' won the Academic Book Award of the Year award from Choice Reviews">''Choice''.

Jewish thought and community life

During the 1970s, Goldberg taught at ''Michlalah: Jerusalem College for Women''. In the 1980s he served as a lecturer in Modern Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and taught Musar at ''Jerusalem Torah College (BMT)''. In 1986, he co-founded an Orthodox Jewish community within a Reform temple in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Goldberg is considered an expert on the Musar movement, having published books on Rabbi Israel Salanter and other aspects of the movement. Numerous yeshiva deans and heads of musar organizations describe his book
The Fire Within
' as life-changing, with Dr. Alan Morinis, founder of
The Mussar Institute
'' writing "it was the introduction to my spiritual lineage....it holds a special place (for me)." Rabbi Micha Berger notes it was the book "which inspired me to explore musar," a topic which was to become central to his life as founder of the
AishDas Society
'.

In addition to his books on Musar, Goldberg has authored English-language books on Jewish transition figures from Eastern Europe and Shabbat, as well as a Hebrew-language supercommentary on the Vilna Gaon regarding the Halachot (Jewish laws) of ''mikveh'', the Jewish ritual bath.

Goldberg has served on the editorial board of numerous national Jewish publications as well. In 1987, he became the first person to serve in the role of contributing editor for the ''Jewish Action'', and has remained in that role ever since. Goldberg is also the longest serving editor for Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, having served in various editorial capacities since 1976.

Selected bibliography

Musar Anthology
Harwich Lithograph. 1972. Library of Congress #: 72-91473.
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Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought
Ktav. 2022. ISBN 978-1602804616

References

External links

Staff page
Intermountain Jewish News website; accessed August 13, 2020.
Amazon author page
accessed August 13, 2020.
An Incredible Life of Torah, Mussar & Newspaper Publishing: A conversation with Rabbi Hillel Goldberg
''Ami Magazine'', July 8, 2020; accessed August 13, 2020.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Hillel
American rabbis
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of California alumni
American activists
20th-century American writers
21st-century American Jews