Memphis Commercial Appeal Newspaper Obituary

Rabbi Efraim Greenblatt, a Memphis rabbi for more than half a century and a world-renowned Torah scholar, died last week in his native Israel. He was 81.

“The Torah world lost one of its most brilliant minds and the Memphis community lost one of its most cherished teachers,” said Rabbi Gil Perl, dean of Margolin Hebrew Academy/Yeshiva of the South.

Rabbi Greenblatt was born in 1932 in Jerusalem, the son of a rabbi and the oldest of 11 children. He came to Memphis in 1952 and spent nearly every waking hour of the next 58 years studying, learning and teaching Hebrew scripture and Jewish law.

He was the weekly Torah reader and served as the cantor for part of the High Holiday Services at Anshei Sphard Beth El Emeth Congregation.  He also taught Judaic Studies to elementary students at Margolin Hebrew Academy.

“Part of what made him so incredible is precisely the rather mundane nature of his jobs,” Perl said. “He was not the rabbi of a synagogue. In fact, he didn’t hold any official position there. In the school, he was a simple teacher.

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