View article

Norman Golb, the celebrated Ame rican Hebraist and Professor at the Ori ental Institute of the University of Chi cago, turns 90 on January 15, 2018. Norman (Naum) Golb was born in Chi cago, but his ancestors, like those of most of the Jewish families of the United States, came from Eastern Europe. Specifically, they came from Belaia Tserkov’, a city in present-day Ukraine whose existence dates back to Medieval Rus’(the ancient Yuriev on the Ros River). The Professor’s surname, which may appear “strange” from the perspec tive of Jewish tradition, is the result of the ingenuity of the Russian authorities who issued passports and invented names for the residents of shtetls. Golb’s ancestors were given the surname Goloborodko, and in the process of American transliteration it was simplified to the shortened name Golb. The development of Norman Golb’s scientific interests in the 1950s was influenced by two well …