Born in Nesvizh, Byelorussia (now Belarus), he grew up in Cape Town (South Africa), immigrated to Salisbury (Southern Rhodesia) ( as it then was) after World War II, and later returned in 1981 to Cape Town where he served as a judge in Transkei.

[1][2] His family moved to South Africa before World war Two, He attended Sea Point Boy's High School in Cape Town before attending the University of Cape Town, where he received his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws.

[1][4] Like the entire Rhodesian judiciary, Goldin faced a dilemma regarding the illegality of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965.

[6] In 1973, Goldin heard the appeal of Peter Niesewand, a Rhodesian journalist convicted for "revealing official secrets.

[9] There, he became a judge on the Supreme Court of Transkei, one of the bantustans, or unrecognised "states" within South Africa set up for black inhabitants.