Greenberg, Louis

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GREENBERG, LOUIS

GREENBERG, LOUIS (1894–1946), U.S. Conservative rabbi and scholar. Born in Russia, Greenberg immigrated to New York in 1913 and taught Hebrew and Bible while pursuing an American education. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1924 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary two years later. He then took a pulpit position at Temple Beth El in New Rochelle (1926–28) and moved to New Haven, where he became rabbi of B'nai Jacob Congregation. The congregation was already moving to the liberal wing of Conservative Judaism, with mixed seating, and late Friday evening services as well as a mixed choir. Greenberg introduced an organ. He developed the schools and the physical facilities of the congregation. While in New Haven, Greenberg pursued his Ph.D. at Yale University and wrote a major work on The Jews in Russia: The Struggle for Emancipation, two volumes being published in 1944 and 1951.

bibliography:

Bnai Jacob: One Hundred Years 18821982; N. Zilberberg, The George Street Synagogue of B'nai Jacob (1961); American Jewish Year Book, vol. 48 (1946–47).

[Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.)]