Before he was given access to insider information about the United States cabinet’s most secretive war plans, Jeffrey Goldberg spent some of the early years of his journalism career at the Forward. As a reporter, New York bureau chief and columnist from 1992 to 1998, he wrote about the declining health of the Lubavitcher rebbe, the Reform movement’s embrace of same-sex marriage and his own shifting views on Zionism, among other topics.
“He was a brilliant reporter and scoop artist,” recalled Seth Lipsky, who founded the English edition of the Forward in 1990 and was its chief editor for a decade.
Goldberg, who has been The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief since 2016, published a blockbuster article on Monday about his accidental inclusion in a Signal group chat where 18 top U.S. officials, including the secretaries of defense and state, discussed plans to attack the Houthis in Yemen. The story has dominated the headlines for days.
Goldberg did not respond to messages inquiring about his time working at the Forward.
Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, Goldberg, 59, grew up on Long Island, and has written about Israel and Zionism throughout his career.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian before dropping out and moving to Israel, where he served in the military — as a prison guard during the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising. He later wrote columns for The Jerusalem Post.
During his six years writing for the Forward, he also contributed to publications including The Washington Post and New York Magazine.
Lipsky, who is now editor of The New York Sun, said one Goldberg scoop stood out in his memory: a 1990 survey that revealed a high rate of intermarriage among American Jews.
“He broke one of the biggest stories of his generation,” Lipsky told me. “It triggered a great deal of attention to the importance of Jewish education.”
Goldberg later critiqued intermarriage in opinion columns at the Forward, and in a 2008 interview with writer Ta-Nehesi Coates for The Atlantic.
“By the way, just so you understand, I’m not for in-marriage — if that’s what you call it — because I’m prejudiced against everyone but Jews,” Goldberg said in the interview. “This has nothing to do with outsiders; this is only about self-preservation.”
Lipsky declined to comment on Goldberg’s story about the Signal chat, and said the two have not kept in touch regularly since they worked together decades ago. But he said Goldberg had, even back then, the right disposition for journalism.
“He’s an extremely friendly and cheerful person,” Lipsky told me. “He’s just got the perfect personality for what he does.”
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