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Friday, September 17, 2010

Schiffman testifies in Golb trial

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN is testifying in the Raphael Golb identity-theft trial:
Scholar says he never ripped off Dead Sea Scrolls 'bully'

By DAVID K. LI (New York Post)

Last Updated: 4:32 PM, September 16, 2010

Posted: 4:31 PM, September 16, 2010

A leading Hebrew scholar today angrily lashed out at accusations he ripped off a rival’s work and deserved to be targeted by a relentless cyber bully.

Lawrence Schiffman -- chairman of NYU's department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies -- minced no words in defending his academic reputation against defenders of Manhattan lawyer Raphael Golb.

Golb -- the son of another noted Hebrew scholar, Norman Golb -- is on trial for creating fake Internet personas to wage cyber war against his dad’s academic rivals, who clash on theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Defense lawyers claim Schiffman, who prosecutors said was Golb’s top victim, is an academic fraud and needed to be called out by any means necessary.

"I’ve never plagiarized Norman Golb!" an agitated Schiffman screamed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The defense spent most of its cross-examination of Schiffman, trying to hammer him for a seemingly minute error he made in citing Norman Golb‘s research.

The NYU scholar once wrote Golb believed the Dead Sea Scrolls came from a single library of work in Jerusalem -- when in fact the defendant’s dad theorizes the writings came from several literary institutions.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman continually chastised the defense for this line of questioning and repeatedly called it "irrelevant."

"I made one error, if you call it plagiarism … forget it, no chance!" Schiffman yelled.

[...]
I doubt very much that Larry was "screaming." He does have a booming voice that carries. Incidentally, I recall making the same error about Golb's position in a post for one of my online Dead Sea Scrolls courses in 2001. One of the list members politely corrected me and no one accused me of plagiarism.

Background here.