Jacob Golomb

Jacob Golomb was born in 1947

Jacob Golomb was born on 5 June 1947 in Wroclaw, Poland, to Eliyahu and Barbara Golomb, and grew up in Warsaw. In 1957 the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Ramat Gan. His father was an engineer and inventor who helped found vocational schools such as Shenkar.

He studied at Hashmonaim school and Ohel Shem high school in Ramat Gan. He served in the IDF from 1966 to 1969 as a medic.

At the Hebrew University he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and psychology in 1972. His master's thesis on Edmund Husserl, supervised by Nathan Rotenstreich, was completed in 1973 and won a prize named after Samuel Hugo Bergmann. He later studied at McGill University in Montreal from 1975 to 1978 and wrote a doctorate on Nietzsche under Yirmiyahu Yovel.

He became a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University in 1988, associate professor in 1996 and full professor in 2006. From 1990 he was the philosophical editor of the Magnes Press, and in 2007 he was given the Ahad Ha'am chair in general philosophy. He wrote, edited and translated books on existentialism, Israeli Jewish identity and Zionism.

Golomb died on 19 July 2023.