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Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column.
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Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
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What is Edifying About Depravity?

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Jan 22 2010, 6:32 AM ET Comment

David Wolpe on the relevance of the Bible:

Repeatedly in our Torah class the question comes up -- why does the Torah tell such violent, painful stories?  Why portray cruel or thoughtless acts?  What is edifying about depravity?

The Bible takes its stand against perfection.  There is no perfect person -- not Moses, not Abraham, not Rebecca, not Ruth.  Each person struggles with the constraints of society and with his or her own passionate nature.  A hero is not a flawless person.  In the best there is a fractured greatness.



The Bible is not a theory about how people should work; it is a description of how they do work.  Only when the stories have established for us that the bible truly understands human nature can we allow it to push us along the path to improvement.  Who would trust a sacred book that knew nothing of anger, or sin, or sadness?  In the cunning of Naomi, the abandon of David and the tortured musings of Ecclesiastes we find parallels for our own lives.  Everything has changed -- language, dress, social customs, and technology -- everything except human nature.  We will cry tears over our children as Jacob did and laugh with Sarah.  And we will continue reading their stories as long as people try to find their way to one another, and to God.
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