His father was chorister with Dovidl Brod Strelisker (1783-1848) at Pest [1] and later cantor at Kecskemét and then at Neutra, Hungary (now Nitra, Slovakia).
[2] On the completion of his training and while en route to his first engagement in Italy, he decided to return to the position of cantor and received an appointment at the newly built Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna in 1857.
Irma Golz was a Viennese soprano who gained notoriety as an opera singer until her untimely death at the age of 30 to leukemia.
Josef's brother Moritz (Morris) Goldstein (1840-1906) was cantor at the K. K. Bene Israel Synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1881 until his death.
In collaboration with Alois Kaiser, Samuel Welsh and I. L. Rice he published "Zimrath Yah: Liturgic songs consisting of Hebrew, English and German psalms and hymns systematically arranged for the Jewish rite with organ accompaniment" (1873).