Blu Greenberg, 1936-

Author, lecturer, educator, poet, and activist, Blu Greenberg has been a forerunner in the movement to bridge the gap between feminism and Orthodox Judaism since 1973. She is the author of several books, including On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition and How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household . In 1997, she chaired the first International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, and the second in 1998. Greenberg was co-founder and first president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) and has served on the boards of numerous Jewish and feminist organizations.

Born Bluma Genauer (later legally changing her name to Blu) on January 21, 1936, in Seattle, Washington , to Rabbi Samuel and Sylvia Genauer, Greenberg grew up in a traditional Orthodox Jewish home. In 1946 the Genauer family moved to Far Rockaway, New York; she attended the all-female Central Yeshiva High School, graduating in 1953. Interested in Jewish scholarship from an early age, Greenberg received a scholarship to the Hayim Greenberg Institute for Teachers in Jerusalem from 1955 to 1956, studying with eminent Israeli scholar Nechama Leibowitz. She holds a B.A. from Brooklyn College in sociology (1957), a bachelor's degree in religious education from Yeshiva University's Teacher's Institute (1958), an M.A. in clinical psychology from City College of New York (1967), and an M.S. in Jewish history from Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University (1977). From 1969 to 1976, she taught religious studies at the College of Mount St. Vincent; she lectured at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem during her sabbatical year (1974-1975).

On June 23, 1957, Blu married Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, an author and community leader. Moving to Riverdale in the Bronx, the Greenbergs had five children: Moshe (born 1961), David (born 1963), Jonathan Joseph "J.J." (1965-2003), Deborah (born 1964), and Judith "Goody" (born 1967).

Greenberg first became active in the Jewish feminist movement in 1973 when she was asked to give the plenary address at the First National Jewish Women's Conference in New York, and soon became a major activist in the field. Over the years, Greenberg has served many Jewish organizations: as chair of the American Jewish Committee's William Petschek National Jewish Family Center, president of the Jewish Book Council of America, chair of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies Commission on Synagogue Relations, and co-founder and first chair of the Federation Task Force on Jewish Women, and on many boards, including Edah, Project Kesher, and U.S./Israel Women to Women. Committed to the process of dialog as a means to further understanding, Greenberg has also participated in many interfaith and inter-ethnic dialogue projects, including the Dialogue Project for Jewish and Palestinian women, and a Tibetan-Jewish Dialogue with the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

After the First International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy in 1997, Greenberg was instrumental in founding the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), a group dedicated to expanding spiritual, ritual, intellectual, and political opportunities for women within the framework of Orthodox Jewish law and working to advocate participation and equality for women in family life, synagogues, houses of learning, and Jewish communal organizations (from JOFA mission statement). As the organization's first president, Greenberg helped JOFA to establish several advocacy committees and projects such as the Agunah Task Force and the Gender and Curriculum Project, while continuing to co-organize annual conferences on Feminism and Orthodoxy.

Blu Greenberg combines the traditional religious scholar and the modern feminist. She believes her role as a contemporary Jewish woman is to insure the safety and viability of Israel as a Jewish homeland and as a present day political state; to insure the continuity of the Jewish people through raising a Jewish family, maintaining a Jewish household, and being involved in the life of the community; and to bring feminist values to bear on Judaism and Jewish values to bear on feminism, maintaining the dialectical relationship between the two (#1.8).

From the guide to the Papers of Blu Greenberg, (inclusive), (bulk), 1936-2006, 1972-2003, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)