Nota Greenblatt

Nota Greenblatt (1925 - April 29, 2022) was a rabbi who was a misader gittin (Jewish divorce supervisor), co-founder of the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, Tennessee, and the leader of the Vaad Hakehilloth of Memphis, a kosher certification agency.

Greenblatt in 2017.

Education

Greenblatt was born to a family with strong roots in the Brisk tradition and Soloveitchik dynasty of hasidism, his father Rabbi Yitzchak Greenblatt being close with rabbis Chaim Soloveitchik and his son Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik. After spending most of his childhood in British Mandate Palestine, Greenblatt and his family moved back to the US when he was 13, where he enrolled in Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim under rabbi Dovid Leibowitz.

At the age of 16 Greenblatt studied under rabbis Yechiel Michel Feinstein and Joseph B. Soloveitchik in the short-lived Heichal Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi in Boston. At the age of 17, Greenblatt enrolled in the Yeshiva of rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim.

Greenblatt went to Palestine in 1946 to study under the Brisker Rav[1] and Rabbi Aharon Cohen, the Rosh Yeshiva (dean) of Hebron Yeshiva. He returned to America in 1948 with his ailing father.[2] [3]

Memphis Hebrew Academy
Greenblatt, 1949, Memphis Hebrew Academy

Greenblatt moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he became the cantor at a local synagogue and teacher in the local Talmud Torah school.[4] In September of 1949 he and local resident Seymour Kutner, opened a school of 38 children for kindergarten and first grade, where he was an unpaid teacher. The schooll later became the K-12 institution known as the Margolin Hebrew Academy[2] [5] [6]

Siddur Gittin

While in Memphis he began supervising Jewish divorces (gittin), travelling internationally in the work.[2] [7]

In 2015 Greenblatt permitted a woman to re-marry despite never receiving a get from her previous husband in a controversial decision.[8]

Work
Greenblatt at Cooper Yeshiva HS in Memphis in 2014.

He published one book in his lifetime, K'Reiach Sadeh (1999). While based on Chumash and Rashi, it is multifaceted, and deals with Targum Onkeles and Talmudic topics, focusing particularly on Kodshim and the Rambam's approach. ref>"YUTorah Online - Divrei Hesped for Rav Nota Greenblatt zt"l (given by Rav Avi Lebowitz) (Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz)". www.yutorah.org. Retrieved 2023-04-27.</ref>

Personal life and death

He and his wife Miriam Kaplan had five children together.[2] [5] He died in New York on April 29, 2022.

References
  1. https://mishpacha.com/hidden-light-2/
  2. Botnick, Shmuel (May 24, 2022). "The Humblest Mountain". Mishpacha Magazine.
  3. Taub, Rabbi Moshe. "The Gaon of Memphis // Rav Nota Greenblatt shaped the world of American Jewry, from the south to the mountain states to the coasts, in a way unsurpassed by any other person | Ami Magazine". Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  4. "Anshei Sphard's New Cantor". Memphis Press-Scimitar. 1949.
  5. "In loving memory of MHA founder Rav Nota Greenblatt, z'l" (PDF). MHA/FYOS Alumni and Friends (24): 33–39. September 2022.
  6. "Rav Nota Memorial 5/8/22". Google Docs. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  7. Genack, Menachem. "Rabbi Nota Greenblatt, zt"l". Jewish Action.
  8. "Is 'Chained' Wife Tamar Epstein's Remarriage Kosher — Even Without Orthodox Divorce?". The Forward. 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
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