RabbiHillel Goldberg is an American newspaper publisher, author, scholar of modern Jewish history, and student of the Musar movement. He is editor and publisher of theIntermountain Jewish News inDenver, Colorado, and an ordained rabbi.
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.[1] Goldberg began his journalism career as a student at George Washington High School, where he publishedTempo magazine with Richard Gould.[2]Tempo was featured inTime.[3]
Goldberg attendedUniversity of California Berkeley, where he tutored minority children in music in Oakland, 1964-1965, and wrote on theFree Speech Movement forFrontier magazine.[4] He completed his undergraduate degree atYeshiva University, where he was a leading student activist, founding the university's chapter of theStudent Struggle for Soviet Jewry in 1965;[5] tutoring forHead Start in Harlem 1965-1966; co-leading the effort to save the books atJewish Theological Seminary after a fire in 1966;[6] co-organizing the effort to send volunteers to Israel on the eve of theSix Day War in late May and early June 1967;[7][8] and founding an underground student newspaper,Pulse, in 1968.[9] Goldberg earned a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies atBrandeis University.[2][10]
Goldberg became editor and publisher of theIntermountain Jewish News in 2017.[2] He had previously served as executive editor. His motherMiriam Goldberg and father Max Goldberg published the newspaper before him (Miriam from 1972-2017;[11] Max from 1943-1972[12]). Goldberg’s weekly column “View From Denver” is the longest-running column in Jewish journalism.[13] He has won more Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism than any other person.[14]
Goldberg has worked for theIntermountain Jewish News since 1966. From 1972-1975 he was its Jerusalem correspondent, then from 1975 to 1983 its Israel correspondent.[2] Throughout, he wrote a weekly column, "The View from Jerusalem", for theIntermountain Jewish News, and reviewed books for theJerusalem Post.[15]
David K. Shipler,The New York Times correspondent in Israel at the time, later wrote of Goldberg inArab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land: "I sat over these questions [about theSabra and Shatila massacres] with my friend Hillel Goldberg, a young lecturer atHebrew 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."[16]
Goldberg's bookIsrael Salanter: Text, Structure, Idea won the Academic Book Award of the Year award fromChoice.[17]
During the 1970s, Goldberg taught atMichlalah: Jerusalem College for Women.[18] In the 1980s he served as a lecturer in Modern Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and taught Musar atJerusalem Torah College (BMT).[19] In 1986, he co-founded an Orthodox Jewish community within a Reform temple in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[13][20][21]
Goldberg is considered an expert on theMusar movement,[10] having published books on RabbiIsrael Salanter and other aspects of the movement. Numerous yeshiva deans and heads of musar organizations describe his bookThe Fire Within as life-changing, with Dr.Alan Morinis, founder ofThe Mussar Institute, writing "it was the introduction to my spiritual lineage....it holds a special place (for me).[22]" 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 theAishDas Society.[23]
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 theVilna Gaon regarding theHalachot (Jewish laws) ofmikveh, the Jewish ritual bath.[24]
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 theJewish Action,[25] and has remained in that role ever since. Goldberg is also the longest serving editor forTradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, having served in various editorial capacities since 1976.[26]