Goldberg was born on January 9, 1895, in
Halshany,
Russia, the son of Moses Waife and Hanna Margolis. His father was a rabbi, and his mother was a descendent of
Abraham Hirsch Eisenstadt and
Shabbatai HaKohen. Goldberg attended the
Lida Yeshiva, followed by the
Volozhin Yeshiva. He also lived and studied with his grandfather in
Dvinsk. His father left for America when he was ten, and in 1907 he went to America with his family and settled in
New York City, New York. He lived in
Michigan and
Iowa from 1908 to 1914, attending elementary and middle schools there and spending a year at the
University of Iowa. He returned to New York City in 1914. He then studied psychology at
Columbia University, receiving a B.S. from there in 1918 and a M.A. in 1919. He joined the staff of
Der Tog in 1922, becoming its associate editor in 1924 and managing editor in 1935. He covered the 1927
Henry Ford-
Aaron Sapiro trial. He conducted a column called
The World Today for the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1932 to 1933. He also contributed to publications like local papers in Traverse City, Michigan,
Current History, and
The Outlook. He was a member of the
Jewish National Workers Alliance, the
Press Club, and the Jewish Writers Club. He was also a director of the Jewish Peoples University and an instructor of the Jewish Workers University and the Jewish Teachers Seminary. He also wrote
Soviet-farband: faynt oder fraynt? in 1947. He wrote a weekly column for
Al HaMishmar, served as editor of
Eynikeit from 1943 to 1946 and of
Jewish Digest in 1943, and was a correspondent of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the
Toronto Daily Star, and
The New Republic. He was president of the Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists, and Scientists from 1943 to 1945. Three days after Yiddish humorist
Sholem Aleichem came to America, Goldberg went to his hotel and invited him to lecture to Yiddish-speaking students at Columbia University. Sholem Aleichem asked him to instead find an apartment for him with his daughter. Goldberg found an apartment and later married the daughter,
Marie Waife. Their children were Dr. Sholom O. Waife of Indianapolis, Indiana and
Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged executive director Mitchell M. Waife of New York. In 1964, he helped found Beit Sholom Aleichem in Israel, which by 1972 housed over 300 manuscripts and memorabilia from Sholem Aleichem. He was buried in the writers' section of
Kiryat Shaul Cemetery.
Histadrut General-Secretary
Yitzhak Ben-Aharon spoke at the funeral parlor, and the cortege stopped at Beth Sholom-Aleichem, where its director Avraham Liss spoke about Goldberg. At the graveside, Histadrut treasurer Yehoshua Levi and
Al HaMishmar editor Yaakov Amit also delivered eulogies. == References ==