,

(ed.), e Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (1981) as well as in

e Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (2003). Mikhtavim mi-Nesiah
Medummah was translated into German (Briefe von einer imaginaeren Reise, 2003). For further English translations of her
works, see Goell, Bibliography, index.
: E. Spicehandler, in: Israel (Spring 1961),
6180; G. Yardeni, Sih ot im Soferim (1961), 11932; G. Shaked, in:
Moznayim, 3 (1956) no. 3, 86190; idem, in: Orot, 38 (Jan. 1960), 4549;
D. Sadan, in: Yerushalayim, Shenaton le-Divrei Sifrut ve-Ommanut
(1970), 1722; R. Alter, in: Commentary, 49, 5 (1970), 8386. .
: R. Sherwin, Two New Translations: e Poems of
L Goldberg and D. Ravikovich as Good English Poems, in: Modern
Hebrew Literature 3/12 (1977), 3842; O. Baumgarten-Kuris, Emz aim
Sifrutiyim be-Shiratah shel L. Goldberg (1979); T. Ruebner, L. Goldberg, Monografyah (1980); A.B. Jae, Pegishotim L. Goldberg (1984);
L. Hovav, Yesodot be-Shirat ha-Yeladim birei Yez iratah shel L. Goldberg
(1986); H. Shoham, Fichte und Landscha: Ein romantisches und
ein zionistisches Modell. Vergleichende Betrachtung eines Gedichtes
von Heinrich Heine und Lea Goldberg, in: Conditio Judaica 1 (1988),
32938; Y. Nave, Biblical Motifs Representing the Lyrical Self in the
Works of Scholem Aleichem, N. Alterman, Lea Goldberg, Ariela Deem,
Shulamit Har-Even (1987); A.B. Jae, Lea Goldberg: Tavei Demut liYez iratah (1994); A. Lieblich, El Lea (1995); S. Neumann, Mokedim
ba-Lashon ha-Figurativit shel Shirat L. Goldberg (1996); N.R.S. Gold,
Rereading It Is the Light, L. Goldbergs Only Novel, in: Prooexts
17/3 (1997), 24559; M.E. Varela Moreno, Hypotexts of Lea Goldbergs
Sonnets, in: Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 2
(1999), 23643; R. Kartun-Blum and A. Weisman (eds.), Pegishot im
Meshoreret: Masot u-Meh karim al Yez iratah shel L. Goldberg (2000);
H. Barzel, Shirat Erez Yisrael: Shlonsky, Alterman, Goldberg (2001);
O. Yaglin, Ulai Mabat Aher: Klasiyut Modernit u-Modernizm be-Shirat L. Goldberg (2002).
[Ezra Spicehandler]

GOLDBERG, MARSHALL (Biggie, e Elkins Express,

Mad Marshall, the Hebrew Hillbilly; 1917 ), U.S. football
player, starring in college at the University of Pittsburgh and in
the with the Chicago Cardinals, and member of College
Football Hall of Fame. Goldberg was born and raised in Elkins, West Virginia, a town of ve Jewish families in a community of 7,500 people. Goldbergs father, Saul, had immigrated
from Uman, Romania, and ran a ladies clothing store before
becoming owner of the towns movie theater. Goldberg was
a high school legend, captaining his schools football, basketball, and track teams in 1935, and was selected All-State in each
sport. He led Pitt to a Rose Bowl title in 1936 aer leading the
nation in rushing with 886 yards, and to the National Championship the following year. Goldberg was named Grantland
Rice All-America honorable mention in 1936, and a consensus All-America halack in 1937 and fullback in 1938, nishing third in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1937 and second in 1938. Goldberg ended his career at Pitt holding all the
schools rushing records, including total rushing yards with
1,957. Goldberg then played with Chicago Cardinals for
eight years, and was considered the greatest defensive back of
his time. He led the team to the championship in 1947,
and made all-pro at two positions as a halack in 1941 and
as a defensive back in 1946, 1947, and 1948. Goldberg led the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 7

league in 1941 with seven interceptions, and in kicko returns

that year with a 24.2-yard average, and the following year with
a 26.2-yard average. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1958.
[Elli Wohlgelernter (2 ed.)]

GOLDBERG, OSCAR (18851952), scholar and author, born

in Berlin. Goldberg rst studied medicine, but on the basis
of personal parapsychological experiments he turned to esoteric mysticism. Aer Hitlers rise to power he immigrated
to France and subsequently to the United States. He later returned to France and died in Nice. His rst work, Die fuenf
Buecher Mosis, ein Zahlengebaeude (1908) is an attempt to
prove (in accordance with kabbalistic opinion) that the entire Torah is based on the letters of the Tetragrammaton. His
basic theories are expressed in the works: Die Wirklichkeit der
Hebraeer (vol. 1, 1925; no more were published); Maimonides
(1935); and articles on Greek mythology in the monthly Mass
und Wert (1937). Goldberg assumed that there were metaphysical peoples whose biological center was their god as
opposed to peoples or groups who had lost their metaphysical power and were merely biological groups. Die Wirklichkeit
der Hebraeer (e Reality of the Hebrews) shows the Hebrews to be the outstanding example of a metaphysical people,
which activates the vital link between it and its center, i.e., its
god, via the magical power of ritual and makes its god dwell
within the world. e metaphysical reality of the genuine Hebrews consisted in the activation of the laws and statutes of
the Torah (which must be understood in its most literal and
exact interpretation). Later Judaism, beginning with the religion of the prophets, was based on the deterioration of the
magical powers of the Hebrews and the loss of the basic tools
for the activation of their magical reality: the Tabernacle and
the Ark of the Covenant. Every metaphysical people has a
national god, and among these gods, which had perfect reality, the God of Israel is but the strongest. As the real magical
power of metaphysics was weakened, there begins the process
of the transformation of the ritual which possessed formal
and material precision into an abstract universal religion.
e histories of religions constitute decline and not progress.
e decline of true Hebraism, which worked miracles not according to circumstance but by order and xed ritual, began
during the reigns of David and Solomon. It reached its nadir
in the religiosity of the Psalms. e transition from worship
in the Temple to that in the synagogue typies the decline of
the metaphysical power to nothingness.
Goldberg accepted only the Pentateuch as a divine document in all its details and signs, and interpreted it magically,
not theologically. e Revelation of God is not an act of
free grace to His creatures, but springs from the need of God
Himself to nd a dwelling place (mishkan) on earth. Goldberg views the system of Maimonides as the nal expression
of complete alienation from the true mission of the Hebraic
existence, and as an intended blurring and abolition of the realistic principle which is the power to work miracles in favor

695

of moralistic and abstract prattle. According to this system,

Goldberg interpreted all details of other mythologies. He advocated the organization of the remnants of magical power
which remained here and there, in order to nd a way for the
renewal of divine revelation. He stated his magical views in a
clearly rationalistic way and linked them with modern biological philosophy. e kabbalistic origins of his thought are conspicuous and Goldberg himself recognized this despite his attempts to dene specic dierences between the spheres of the
Torah and that of Kabbalah. Goldberg was hostile to Zionism,
which he viewed as a secular renewal of a Jewish people without a metaphysical basis according to his denition.
For many years Goldberg led a small group which propagated his views in writing and orally. His most important disciple in philosophy was Erich Unger (d. 1951 in London). For
some time his works and thoughts had considerable inuence
on circles of both Jewish and gentile intellectuals, scholars and
writers such as the paleontologist E. Dacque, and the writer
omas Mann. e latter depicted Goldberg in his novel Doctor Faustus (1947) as the character Dr. Chaim Breisacher.
: J. Schechter, Mi-Madda le-Emunah (1953),
21329; E. Unger, Politik und Metaphysik (1922); idem, Das Problem
der mythischen Realitaet (1926); idem, Wirklichkeit, Mythos, Erkenntnis (1930); A. Caspary, Die Maschinenutopie (1927).
[Gershom Scholem]

GOLDBERG, RUBE (18831970), U.S. cartoonist. Reuben

Lucius Goldberg, satirist of American folkways and creator of
improbable and outlandish devices and inventions, was born
in San Francisco, Calif. His father insisted he go to college to
become an engineer. Aer graduating from the University
of California at Berkeley, Goldberg went to work for the San
Francisco Water and Sewers Department. Aer six months,
Goldberg joined the sports department of a San Francisco
newspaper and kept submitting drawings and cartoons to its
editor, until he was nally published. He moved to New York,
drawing daily cartoons for e Evening Mail. At rst he was
a sports cartoonist and sportswriter, but one day, with a little space le over from his cartoon, he lled it with Foolish
Question No. 1, which showed a man who had fallen from the
Flatiron Building being asked if he was hurt. No, I jump o
this building every day to limber up for business, he replied.
e Foolish Question caught on, and Goldberg wound up doing thousands of them. Many of his ideas came from readers,
fascinated with the nearly probable. As comic strips grew in
popularity, Goldberg conceived the character Boob McNutt,
a simple-looking fellow who was in love with a beautiful girl
named Pearl. eir blunder-lled courtship went on from 1916
to 1933. Goldberg also created the strip Lala Palooza, about a
woman of ample girth. His most enduring creation was Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, the inventor of marvelously
complicated contraptions designed to accomplish fairly simple ends. An exhibition of these nonexistent and zany gadgets
opened at the National Museum of History and Technology of
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in 1970. e Gold-

696

bergs of yesterday were catalogued under the show title Do

It the Hard Way: Rube Goldberg and Modern Times. ere
were cartoons, comic strips, and oddly ingenious doodads
that might have been invented by Goldberg himself. e cartoonists ludicrous inventions became so widely known that
Websters ird International Dictionary listed the adjective
rube goldberg and dened it as accomplishing by extremely
complex roundabout means what actually or seemingly could
be done simply.
In the middle 1930s, comic strips declined in popularity and at the age of 55 Goldberg embarked on a career as an
editorial cartoonist for e New York Sun and later the New
York Journal-American, for which he drew 5,000 cartoons.
One of his cartoons, Peace Today, warning of the perils of
atomic weapons, which appeared in e Sun, won a Pulitzer
Prize in 1948.
[Stewart Kampel (2 ed.)]

GOLDBERG, SZYMON (19091993), violinist and conductor of Polish birth. He studied with Mihailowicz in Warsaw,
and with Flesch in Berlin. Aer his debut in Warsaw (1921),
he appeared with the Berlin (1924) and was leader of the
Dresden Philharmonic (19251929). From 1929 to 1934 he
formed a string trio with Hindemith and *Feuermann and
was appointed concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic. He
then toured as soloist and as sonata partner with Lili *Kraus.
While on a tour of Asia, Goldberg was interned in Java by the
Japanese (19421945). Aer the war he resumed his career and
played in Australia, South Africa, the Americas, and Israel.
He became an American citizen (1953) and taught at the Aspen Music School (19511965) where he formed the Festival
Quartet, which achieved wide recognition in concerts and
on records. Goldberg played trios with Casals and R. *Serkin during the Prades Festival (1954) and became permanent
conductor and musical director of the Netherlands Chamber
Orchestra (1955), which he led with notable distinction for 22
years. From 1969 he lived in London, conducted the Manchester Camerata (19771982), taught at Yale University, the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Manhattan
School of Music. From 1990 until his death he conducted the
New Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo. He was an ocer of the
Order of Oranje Nassau. A masterly violinist Goldbergs tone
was warm and pure, his interpretations stressed renement,
intimacy and a noble intensity. His recordings include a distinguished set of the Brandenburg Concertos and, with Radu
Lupu, 16 Mozart sonatas. He was also a sensitive performer
of Bartk, Berg, and Hindemith.
: Grove Music Online; ; Bakers Biographical Dictionary (1997); B. Gavoty. Szymon Goldberg (Geneva,
1961),
[Naama Ramot (2 ed.)]

GOLDBERGER, IZIDOR (18761944), Hungarian rabbi and

scholar. Goldberger, who was born in Btorkeszi, Hungary,
held appointments in Storaljaujhely (19031914) and Tata
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 7