Arthur A. Goldberg

Arthur Abba Goldberg (born 1940) is an American attorney, businessman and leader in the ex-gay movement. He is the former Executive Secretary of National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), Co-Founder and Co-Director of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), President of Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality (PATH) and Principal of the Center for Gender Affirming Processes (CGAP). All of these groups are devoted to conversion therapy and other regimens intended to change the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay and bisexual LGB individuals who experience unwanted sexual attraction to members of the same sex.

Goldberg is also an Honorary Trustee at the Congregation Shearith Israel, a Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York.

Education

He received his B.A. majoring in Government with a minor in English from American University with general honors, and a J.D. from Cornell University where he wrote for the Cornell Law Review and was also the editor of the Cornell Law Forum from 1964 to 1965. He was professor at the Connecticut University law school and Deputy Attorney General of New Jersey. Goldberg was disbarred by the New Jersey Supreme Court on November 9, 1995.

Business activities & conviction for fraud

In the 1980s, Goldberg was well known on Wall Street, earning the nicknames "Abba Dabba Do" and "Abba Cadabra" for his investment skills. As Executive Vice President and a major stockholder of Matthews Wright Inc., he was involved in a financial scandal, and was indicted on "52 counts of bribery, conspiracy and fraud in connection with $2 billion in municipal bonds." He pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States of America. In 1989, Goldberg was fined $100,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison on conviction of fraud. In 1995, he was barred from practicing law in New Jersey, as a disciplinary board unanimously concluded that "Goldberg's criminal convictions clearly and convincingly demonstrated his participation in activities that reflected adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness, and fitness as a lawyer."

Activism

Since the 1960s, Goldberg has been involved in community service and was active in resettling immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In 1974, he founded the Committee for the Absorption of Soviet Emigres in Jersey City.

Views on homosexuality

While attending New York University, Goldberg's son and the son of Elaine Berk both came out as gay. Goldberg and Berk found that much of the ex-gay movement was strongly associated with charismatic Christianity. Wanting a spiritual alternative for same-sex attracted Jews, they co-founded Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). In the 1960s, Goldberg traveled to the American South, and now "employs the language of civil rights to argue that people should have the right to change their sexuality."

Goldberg "uses Jewish law texts and scientific study to get to the individual root causes of same sex attraction and help those who are unhappy with their lifestyle reassert their gender identity and change their life." In 2008, he wrote Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change. In the book, Goldberg claims that there is no genetic cause of homosexuality, and argues for the controversial claim of reparative therapists that homosexual orientation can be changed.

Goldberg's negative views on gay parenting have been cited by the Washington Times.

Details of the fraud convictions resurfaced in February 2010, when an investigative report by Truth Wins Out, a group formed to counter what they consider the ex-gay "myth", and South Florida Gay News revealed that Arthur Abba Goldberg was the same Arthur A. Goldberg of JONAH, a connection that had not yet been made public. They tied the conviction for fraud to what they see as his "dishonest present-day work" with JONAH and NARTH.