Judith Goldstein Founder and Executive Director Emeritus, Humanity in Action, Inc.
As a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Columbia University, she received a Masters degree in European history and wrote her thesis on the “Mouvement Republicain Populaire and the Franco Vietnamese War, 1946-1954.” In 1972, Judith completed her doctoral studies at Columbia University after writing her dissertation on “The Politics of Ethnic Pressure: The American Jewish Committee Fight Against Immigration Restriction: 1906-1917.” This book was republished by Routledge in 1990 and was the beginning of a sustained concentration on immigration and diversity in America and Europe. She worked at Columbia University for 10 years focused on an oral history project on Ethnic Groups and American Foreign Policy. In the late 1980s, she started a book about the integration of Jewish immigrants in Maine. In 1992, William Morrow published Crossing Lines: Histories of Jews and Gentiles in Three Communities. In 2006, Rutgers University Press published Inventing Great Neck: Jewish Identity and American Dreams.
Judith worked as the Executive Director of Thanks To Scandinavia, started by the Danish pianist Victor Borge to acknowledge Scandinavians who resisted Nazism and protected Jews during the Second World War. In 1997, Judith founded Humanity in Action and served as its Executive Director until 2023. Programs have included fellowships and internships in Europe and the United States, annual publications, photography exhibitions, films, and conferences. Over 26 years the organization has engaged over 2,750 college and university students in its programs and raised over $31 million.
Judith serves on the Board of The Frances Perkins Foundation and the Somes Pond Center, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She sustains an abiding interest in conservation and landscape design and history, especially as it relates to Maine and Mt. Desert Island.