Political Life
He was elected an Alderman to Cork Corporation as an Independent in 1967, and unsuccessfully sought the mayoralty in 1970. He accused Patrick Cooney, then Justice Minister, of condoning torture of those (mostly Irish republicans and other advocates of political violence) held under the Offences Against the State Act, 1939 in 1974.
Goldberg was among those who condemned the speech in 1970 by the then-Mayor of Limerick, Steve Coughlan, who made justifying references to the 1904 Limerick Pogrom, which had forced Goldberg's family to flee Limerick for Cork, and had clashed with a previous Limerick Mayor on the same matter in 1951. Goldberg previously attended a symposium on the Limerick Pogrom in 1965, which had also attracted local opposition, which faded during the reading of the first sermon of Father Creagh, who along with other members of the clergy, including the local bishop, had motivated his Roman Catholic parishioners to carry out the 1904 pogrom, for which one teenager, John Raleigh, was arrested.
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