S.J. Goldsmith

Samuel Joseph (Shmuel/Sam) Goldsmith (1910–1995) was a journalist, author, and editor in the Jewish and English press, whose reports and analyses are valuable sources for the understanding of key events in twentieth-century Europe and the Middle East and who shaped opinion among and about Jews during the second half of the 20th century.

Born in Jonava, Lithuania, Goldsmith graduated from the Hebrew High School in Kaunas and the University of Vitautas the Great, Kaunas. His early career was in the once flourishing Jewish press of Eastern Europe. From 1933, he edited the evening edition, Hayntike Nayes, of the daily newspaper Yiddishe Shtimme, read throughout Eastern Europe. He became this paper's London correspondent in 1939.

Goldsmith married Sonia Minsky and made his life in London. From 1939, he reported and wrote op-eds for the Hebrew daily newspaper HaBoker in Tel Aviv, and for the British Sunday paper Reynold's News. As a British war correspondent he was the first journalist to enter the Bergen-Belsen camp after liberation and among the first in Dachau. He covered the Belsen Trial in Lüneburg and the Nuremberg Trials. Between 1958 and 1975 he served as European Editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He was a prolific freelance contributor to various newspapers and journals, in several languages. During 1975–82, he wrote features for the Times (of London), introducing aspects of Jewish ideas, culture, and politics to the British public. Among the causes he promoted were the Hebrew language, its promotion through education, and the fostering of bilingualism. He was a founding member and chairman of the London branch of the World Hebrew Union. He was also well-known as an expert in Yiddish language and literature.

Goldsmith also authored a number of books, including five collections of essays.

• Twenty 20th Century Jews (illustrated by Juliet Pannett) (New York, 1962) Library of Congress catalogue no 62-21943
• Ḥatsi milyon yehudim be-arafel, yehudei britanya (Half a Million Jews in the Fog: The Jews of Great Britain) (in Hebrew, Tel Aviv, 1963).
• Jews in Transition (illustrated by Juliet Pannett) (New York, 1969) ISBN 978-0901418005
• In the Passage of Time (London and New York, 1978)
• The Slaughter of Sacred Cows (London, 1984) ISBN 978-0946999002
• The Edge of the Conflagration: Essays in Disapproval (London, 1992) ISBN 978-1857560268
• As Editor: Britain in the Eye of the World : The Foreign Press Association in London, 1888-1988 (London, 1988) ISBN 9780905734019