Raphael Golb and his father, University of Chicago historian Dr. Norman Golb. Raphael Golb is charged with multiple felony and misdemeanor counts of forgery, identity theft, impersonation, and aggravated harassment of several Dead Sea Scrolls scholars.
court docs allege:
norman golb knew about the smear campaign!
court docs also allege:
norman golb participated in the smear campaign against other scholars.
in fact, according to email transcripts contained in the january 19, 2010 new york district attorney’s response to raphael golb’s motion to dismiss all charges and suppress evidence, norman golb actively participated the smear campaign against fellow dead sea scrolls scholars by providing phone call and email talking points.
court documents show that norman golb’s other son, joel, was involved as well.
in fact, according to court docs, norman golb’s wife, ruth, was involved too. norman golb went so far as to use his wife ruth’s email account to disguise his involvement in the event that his email was ever compromised.
the smear campaign was a golb family affair! (based upon evidence in court docs)
for those interested in this seemingly never-ending scandal, the new york district attorney prosecuting the case against raphael golb has responded to golb’s motions to dismiss. it is now posted online. (these docs are publicly available.) raphael golb, son of university of chicago oriental institute historian norman golb, stands accused of 51 counts of criminal impersonation, identity theft, forgery, aggravated harassment, and unauthorized use of a computer. a full account of the scandal can be found at http://www.who-is-charles-gadda.com.
below are excerpts from the:
AFFIRMATION IN RESPONSE TO THE DEFENDANT’S MOTIONS TO DISMISS, MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE RECOVERED VIA SEARCH WARRANT, AND REQUEST FOR AN ADVISORY OPINION
note in particular, exhibit c (transcribed below), which gives only some of the email evidence the new york district attorney’s office used to bring charges against raphael golb.
key lines to watch for:
“By the way, if Dad has some comment on the latest Charles Gadda exchange, he can send it through your email, that way there would be no trace of it in his account.” – Raphael Golb
“…they know Gadda is Golb’s son, meaning they are faced with a dedicated, in-the-know adversary who is out to get them, and there’s simply nothing they can do about it.” – Raphael Golb
“we can’t send via Dad’s email so we’ll send via mine” – Ruth Golb (Norman Golb’s Wife, Raphael Golb’s Mother)
“Dad thinks that if Crawford was invited it’s because she’s Frank Cross’s student and someone must have been in back of it since she’s the least competent of all of them.” – Ruth Golb
“… Mom and I also found of interest the latest item you sent us, i.e. the one from the writer living in Raleigh (or thereabouts). The recent blogs by Dworkin et al. are obviously having effect,” – Norman Golb
“Schiffman is such a sleaze and behaves as though he has nothing to fear -this makes sense to me. Love, Mom” – Ruth Golb
“Would you like me to inform them using an alias, or do you prefer to contact them yourself?” – Raphael Golb to Norman Golb
“your contribution was posted 2 minutes after my own posting–wouldn’t it have been better to wait a while to avoid the impression that we are collaborating or are indeed one and the same person?” – Joel Golb to Raphael Golb
“I really don’t think I ruined anything by coming on — the tone of my thing was quite different from yours, along with links. It’s part of Gadda’s persona to always come on late at night with jabs at these people, quoting the New York Times and similar sources. Why shouldn’t he have picked up on Ignorant Gnostic’s statement?” - Raphael Golb in response to Joel Golb
…. So I think Dworkin should be extremely careful to make sure the mail is totally untraceable–even going so far as to mail from an internet cafe–and it might actually be time in the next few weeks to simply throw out his old computer and replace it with one of those extremely inexpensive PCs one can now get… – Joel Golb to Raphael Golb alias “Robert Dworkin”
EXHIBIT C
Summary of, and Excerpts of,
Certain Email Communications
These emails are provided to help demonstrate defendant’s intent and motive.
EMAILS BETWEEN THE GOLBS CONCERNING THE UPCOMING JEWISH MUSEUM EXHIBIT, THAT ASSIST IN DEMONSTRATING DEFENDANT’S INTENT AND MOTIVE REGARDING HIS SUBSEQUENT IMPERSONATION OF DR. SCHIFFMAN
On July 24, 2008 at 11:57 PM Raphael Golb (raphael.g@mindspring.com) wrote to Ruth Golb (ruthgolb@gmail.com), his mother:
… I saw Dan F. today. Unfortunately, he’s probably not going to be able to accomplish anything [at the Jewish Museum]… Thus, he has no influence over them. He does, however, know the curator (Susan Braunstein), and will speak to her about it (but she might be on vacation). She will probably resist, however, and then he will be able to do nothing.
This makes it all the more important that Dad try and do something about this via Benny Kedar. There is no shame in asking to see the list of lecturers (“Look, I don’t want to tell you who to invite and not to invite, but I would be curious to see who you have invited”) and pointing out that they could have had the courtesy to invite him, after everything he has done to help them improve the exhibits.
By the way, if Dad has some comment on the latest Charles Gadda exchange, he can send it through your email, that way there would be no trace of it in his account. [emphasis added]
Raph
On July 26, 2008, Raphael Golb (raphael.g@mindspring.com) wrote:
… what must be truly maddening to them is that they know Gadda is Golb’s son, meaning they are faced with a dedicated, in-the-know adversary who is out to get them, and there’s simply nothing they can do about it. I believe the blogging campaign has put pressure on them and possibly contributed to what we are seeing now with the Jewish Museum. [emphasis added]
On July 28, 2008, at 9:32am, Raphael Golb (raphael.g@mindspring.com) emailed Dr. Norman Golb (n-golb@uchicago.edu) a link to a Nowpublic blog by Gadda concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Jewish Museum, with subject “new nowpublic item on new york exhibit” and text “Dad — there’s a new article out by Gadda — http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/dead-sea-scrolls-coming-new-york”
On July 28, 2008, at 2:56pm, Ruth Golb emailed Raphael Golb and indicated “we can’t send via Dad’s email so we’ll send via mine”
On July 30, 2008, at 2:08pm, Raphael Golb emailed his family with a proposed email to be sent to Susan Braunstein, curator of the Jewish Museum.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 2:08 PM, wrote:
Mom, Dad, Joel,
how about this:
Dear Ms. Braunstein,
I am the son of Norman Golb (author of Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?).
I live in New York, and I have heard that an exhibit of the scrolls will soon be opening at the Jewish Museum. If you can spare a moment one afternoon, I would greatly appreciate having the opportunity to meet you; I have some information on recent developments that could be of interest to you.
Raphael Golb, Ph.D.
On July 30,2008, at 3:16pm, Ruth Golb responded:
“No, no, no for a few reasons. But let Dad write to B. K. tomorrow. ” [indicating Benny Kedar]
On July 30, 2008, at 3:46pm, Raphael Golb responded:
Okay, but we are very quickly running out of time on this one. [emphasis added] New York is far away from Jerusalem and I suspect it is not a primary concern of Benny Kedar’s. Incidentally, is Dad on good terms with anyone at the Jewish Theological Seminary?
In Dad’s letter, he should perhaps point out that the Jewish Museum is one of Judaism’s most prominent cultural institutions (hinting that its reputation is at stake), and ask if Katz will be taking steps to ensure that the decisions taken at the meeting will be concretely applied to the exhibit there.
On July 30, 2008, at 4:07pm, Raphael Golb wrote to Ruth Golb:[,]
I just called Dan about this and he immediately said there was no way Braunstein would ever meet with me, because she’s a “big shot.” He insisted that she must indeed be “au courant” because she is very clever, and that nothing he tells her will make any difference anyway because she will simply do what she wants. (Meanwhile, she has not returned his calls, because she must be busy setting up the exhibit and she probably assumes that he is just calling her for social reasons.)
My conclusion: the only way of getting through to her would be to directly inform her of the meeting. Ideally, Benny Kedar would call her himself, but again, I can understand Dad’s reluctance to be pushy. The only realistic possibility is for Kedar to instruct Katz to call Braunstein with a request that the additional information be added to the exhibit.
On July 30, 2008, at 6:18pm, Raphael Golb wrote to Ruth Golb:
I just spoke with Dan R; I could tell that basically he didn’t have the courage to ask Braunstein to invite Dad; he kept suggesting that I come to the lectures and ask questions afterwards to rebut the speakers; when I explained why that wouldn’t work, he suggested that Dad himself show up at Schiffman’s lecture (at Dan F.’s expense, hotel and everything); when I explained why Dad wouldn’t do that, he suggested that Dad write to Braunstein, pointing out that the speakers are not balanced and that he would be willing to give a talk at his own expense to rebut them…
On July 30, 2008, at 9:04pm, Ruth Golb wrote Raphael Golb:
Dad thinks that if Crawford was invited it’s because she’s Frank Cross’s student and someone must have been in back of it since she’s the least competent of all of them.
Now, if Dad is to use the Schiffman thing, he needs the exact quote of Schiffman’s and page number. Dad doesn’t have a copy of the book here.
The following email thread indicates the Golbs’ interest in who was speaking at the Jewish Museum, and refers to the fact that Dr. Schuller and Dr. Crawford were both students of Dr. Frank Cross.
On July 31,2008 Raphael Golb wrote Ruth Golb and wrote:
I doubt if this has anything to do with Cross — it could easily have come from the usual Katz recommended list, and simply result from the fact that Braunstein is a woman and that the idea of the lecture (“Women at Qumran”) seemed interesting and different to her — something that would interest the audience.
On July 31, 2008, Ruth Golb wrote to Raphael Golb:
Poor Dan. He means well, but the politics of this is beyond him. His suggestions would not be appropriate, of course.
Dad thinks that if Crawford was invited it’s because she’s Frank Cross’s student and someone must have been in back of it since she’s the least competent of all of them. Now, if Dad is to use the Schiffman thing, he needs the exact quote of Schiffman’s and page number. Dad doesn’t have a copy of the book here.
Mom
On August 05, 2008, 12:39am, Raphael Golb Wrote to Norman Golb under subject “schuller — harvard”:
Ph.d. Harvard, student of Cross just like the other one.
On August 06, 2008, 7:06pm, Raphael Golb wrote to Norman Golb:
Dad –
You will be amused to learn that the announcement of Schuller’s lecture has disappeared from the Jewish Museum website, at least for now. I have a feeling they have decided to try and keep it a secret for as long as possible…
Raph
On August 10,2008, at 1:10am, Norman Golb wrote to Raphael Golb:
… Mom and I also found of interest the latest item you sent us, i.e. the one from the writer living in Raleigh (or thereabouts). The recent blogs by Dworkin et al. are obviously having effect,
On August 10, 2008, 1:32am, Raphael Golb wrote to Norman Golb:
…
Would you like me to inform them using an alias, or do you prefer to contact them yourself? I’m sure they will ignore this anyway (perhaps not Orion, but the others certainly will).
On August 4, 2008, Raphael Golb wrote (apparently to Ruth Golb):
I was wrong in my assumption about the woman lecturer — it is Eileen Marie Schuller, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University — no doubt just as bad as the other one, but nonetheless not the same.
…
Raph
On Mon, Aug 11,2008 Ruth Golb wrote to Raphael Golb:
Hi Raph,
Dad is still sleeping but I think you’re on to something here. Schiffman is such a sleaze and behaves as though he has nothing to fear -this makes sense to me.
Love,
Mom
…
On August 14, 2008, Raphael Golb wrote to Ruth Golb:
Okay — we absolutely need to speak on the phone before Dad gives his lecture. Weston Fields responded to Friedman with a “thank you very much for this information!” note. I have a hunch Fields and Broshi might try and set him up, with people here and there in the audience shouting out things like “why don’t you write a Nowpublic article on that, or will you have your son do it for you?” to try and rattle him. He needs to be very seriously prepared for that sort of thing — he should write down a few notes on what to say if that should happen, and bring them along with the text of the lecture so that he doesn’t feel caught off guard. (Possible responses: “you think I care about internet junk? I don’t know which of my sons you’re referring to, but they both have jobs, and if they chat on-line, they’re entitled to their opinion. now are you going to keep interrupting my talk, or can we go on?”) He must also prepare himself for a more “scientific” set up, people here and there in the audience attempting to point out every little weakness they can find.
EMAILS AMONG THE GOLBS THAT DEMONSTRATE COORDINATION OF DEFENDANT’S SOCK PUPPET ACTIVITIES AND MAINTAINING ANONYMITY, WHICH ASSIST IN DEMONSTRATING DEFENDANT’S INTENT AND MOTIVE
On July 2, 2008, Golb/Gadda alias Jesse Friedman wrote to Joel Golb (j.golb@snafu.de)
I am sorry — I forgot to “activate” the phillipcoleman@yahoo.com account yesterday — mea culpa. Try again on the site, I think it will work now. Phillip_Coleman.
Where they ask you for your city and phone number, try Philadelphia, 19134 is zipcode and invent a phone number — area code is 215. You can always be on vacation if they inquire (but so far none of my aliases have received the slightest hint of attention).
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1123440.html
You should also try posting on the other site again. The woman has returned from vacation, and look how she has updated her original posting! — with a quote from the latest comment by “Dead Sea Scrolls student”…
http ://blog.news-record.com/staff/frontpew/archives/2008/06/dead_sea_scroll.shtml
On August 3, 2007, defendant (using personal email account raphael.g@mindspring.com) emailed Joel Golb and wrote:
I see you called–was at the library all day–Gadda has now published a definitive attack against these people–please let me know if you see any typos, etc., I will pass the info on to him if I see him–
http://www.nowpublic.com/christian_fundamentalism_and_dead_sea_scrolls_san_diego
On Jul 25, 2008, 5:54am, Joel Golb wrote to Raphael Golb:
your contribution was posted 2 minutes after my own posting–wouldn’t it have been better to wait a while to avoid the impression that we are collaborating or are indeed one and the same person? You want me to help on this–then please preserve Gnostic’s outward integrity as an independent contributor
On July 25, 2008, 11:27am, Raphael Golb wrote to Joel Golb:
Relax — it would have been unusual if I hadn’t posted anything — they would have started insinuating I was using another alias.
2 minutes — actually it was more like an hour or two, but if it says 2 minutes that’s good — how can I be in two places at the same time?
On July 25, 2008, 4:58pm, Raphael Golb wrote to Joel Golb:
I’m just getting home from stuff. From your exchange with Dad, I see that he apparently didn’t get my other emails which would explain why he never got back to me.
I really don’t think I ruined anything by coming on — the tone of my thing was quite different from yours, along with links. It’s part of Gadda’s persona to always come on late at night with jabs at these people, quoting the New York Times and similar sources. Why shouldn’t he have picked up on Ignorant Gnostic’s statement?
The following emails further demonstrate the coordination between Raphael and Joel Golb, and confusion about the volume of anonymous blogs:
On September 17, 2008, 12:55pm, Joel Golb emailed Raphael Golb:
there has been a new comment added to the Now Public site….
Raphael Golb responded with:
which article, the plagiarism thing? let them fight it out, whether someone plagiarized dad isn’t my concern, i am focused on the institutional problem, i’m around now if you can call.
On Sep 18, 2008, at 2:43am, Joel Golb wrote to Raphael Golb:
the Now Public article
On September 18, 2008, 2:45am, Raphael Golb responded to Joel Golb and stated:
look, i don’t know which article you’re talking about, there are nine of them — just give me a call, i need to tell you something anyway
A June 17, 2008 email from j.friedman47@gmail.com (a Golb/Gadda alias) to j.golb@snafu.de (the email account of Joel Golb in Germany) indicates discussion about the use of proxies, and discusses a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that was opening in North Carolina. The use of an internet proxy is a method of disguising one’s internet protocol address, the identifier that indicates which computer is accessing a computer at a given place and time.
“they are clearly accepting messages submitted through proxies, it must be some kind of glitch in their system — we are now up to 17 comments (see latest by sandy greenberg and martin elderling)…”
A November 4, 2007 email between robertdworkin@gmail.com (a Golb/Gadda alias) and j.golb@snafu.de (the email account of Joel Golb) contains discussion about an outline to use concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the subject “scrap last outline–use this instead (dad phoned with some suggestions)”. This email implies that Norman Golb called Joel Golb, gave suggestions to the outline, which Joel Golb passed on to Raphael Golb in this email. This also implies that both Joel Golb and Norman Golb know that Raphael Golb is using at least some internet aliases.
A January 18, 2008 email between robertdworkin@gmail.com (an alias of Raphael Golb) and j.golb@snafu.de (the email account of Joel Golb) discusses keeping emails anonymous and untraceable, and some confusion about which alias will be used to send emails from NYU computers.
Subject: Re: revised version
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:38:23 +0100
From: Joel Golb <j.golb@snafu.de>
To: robert dworkin <robertdworkin@gmail.com>
…. So I think Dworkin should be extremely careful to make sure the mail is totally untraceable–even going so far as to mail from an internet cafe–and it might actually be time in the next few weeks to simply throw out his old computer and replace it with one of those extremely inexpensive PCs one can now get…
There is email correspondence between Raphael Golb’s alias accounts and Dr. Golb, however it never overtly acknowledges a partnership. However Raphael Golb alias accounts have forwarded to Dr. Norman Golb email exchanges that the alias account (or another alias account) had with third parties. For example:
On August 15, 2007, email account robert.dwokin@gmail.com (a Golb/Gadda alias) sent email account n-golb@uchicago.edu (email account of Dr. Norman Golb) an email that forwarded a communication between robertdworkin@gmail.com and an employee at the LA Times concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls.
On March 31, 2008, email account joshua.reznick@yahoo.com (a Golb/Gadda alias) sent three successive emails to email account n-golb@uchicago.edu (email account of Dr. Norman Golb). These three successive emails appear to be revisions of the prior emails, and while formal in tone, the successive emails do not reference the preceding emails. In other words, if they did not know each other well, one would expect some sort of acknowledgment or apology for sending successive similar emails. These March 31, 2008 emails invite Dr. Norman Golb to correspond with the individual that email account joshua.reznick@yahoo.com had been corresponding with, and includes a copy of the prior correspondence. It is reasonable to infer that the successive emails represent successive revisions, with the final version being what Dr. Norman Golb would show to the person that the Golb/Gadda had been corresponding with.
On July 15, 2008, email account j.friedman47@gmail.com (a Golb/Gadda alias) sent email account n-golb@uchicago.edu (email account of Dr. Norman Golb) an email that forwarded a communication between jerome.cooper2@gmail.com (another alias of Raphael Golb) and a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls.
On December 16,2008, defendant (using email address raphael.g@mindspring.com) emailed Dr. Golb (at n-golb@uchicago.edu) under the subject line “Canadian Jewish academic site links museum controversy”
http://www.cijr.com/Israzine/israzine_Home.htm
You will see that they make a mistake (referring to you several times as “Norman Golb and Ludwig Rosenberger”) to which I believe someone has alerted them in case they can (or desire) to change it. Nonetheless, this arguably puts greater pressure on the museum. Notice that they have also linked one of Gadda’s articles
=== END TRANSCRIPT ===
the evidence is compelling.
but given this new evidence, we must also ask:
- has the university of chicago opened an ethics investigation into the behavior of norman golb?
- is this the kind of professional behavior encouraged and endorsed by the university of chicago?
- if it can be shown that letters were sent to university of chicago administrators bringing this matter of golb’s actions to their attention, and they did not act and failed to investigate golb, is the university complicit, either via negligence or tacit endorsement, in golb’s activity?
- given this new evidence, will the university of chicago open an ethics investigation into the activities of norman golb?
more to follow soon…
there’s still time. if you plan on submitting a paper for the inaugural ‘blogger and online publication’ section at the society of biblical literature 2010 annual meeting in atlanta, make sure you do so before march 1, 2010.
a colleague sent me this recently.
well, that explains it.
