Yosef Goldman

Yosef Goldman (1942 – August 4, 2015) was a scholar of American Jewish history and the co-author of the two-volume reference work, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (2006). This work is usually cited by auctioneers and rare-book dealers. His collection of early American Judaica and Hebraica is said to be one of the most comprehensive in the world.

Goldman was born in 1942 in Újpest (also known as Newpest), a District of Budapest, Hungary, into a Hasidic family. His father, Rabbi Lipa Goldman, was a Chief Rabbi and Av Beis Din of an Orthodox Jewish community in Újpest. In 1950, his family emigrated to the United States and lived in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Goldman studied at Beth Medrash Elyon of Monsey, New York, at the time an elite Rabbinical seminary.

By profession, Goldman was a dealer of rare Jewish/Hebrew books and manuscripts and was known as a leading figure in this field.

On August 4, 2015, he passed away from complications of melanoma.

In May 2000, Goldman bid on and purchased a 13th-century Biblical manuscript for $358,000 from the well-known auction house, Christie's of New York. In May 2006, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France) filed suit against Goldman, claiming ownership of the manuscript and demanding its return. This lawsuit was filed after a former chief curator of the library's Hebrew collection, Michel Garel, was convicted in March 2006 of stealing ‘Hebrew 52’, a Biblical manuscript known among experts. After pleading innocent, Garel was ultimately convicted, fined $500,000, and given a two-year suspended sentence. The lawsuit against Goldman alleged that the manuscript Goldman purchased was the one known as ‘Hebrew 52’. In July 2006, Goldman sued Christie's in Brooklyn Supreme Court, saying the auction house knew before consignment that the manuscript was stolen, that it should never have accepted consignment of it for auction, and that he should be refunded $358,000 in return for the manuscript.

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