Zalman I. Posner, who led Congregation Sherith Israel in Nashville for more than half a century, died April 23 in California at age 87. He is remembered as a warm, approachable and inspirational educator and spiritual leader with an ability to engage Jews regardless of their level of learning.
Posner was born in Palestine in 1927, the eldest of six children. His parents, Sholom and Chaya Posner, had fled the oppression of the Soviet Union and made their home in Rishon Letzion, where Sholom was a shochet (ritual slaughterer). The family immigrated to America in the 1930s and eventually settled in Pittsburgh.
The young Posner became one of the first students at Tomchei Tmimim, the central yeshiva of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in New York. Before moving to Nashville, he married Rita (Didi) Kazarnovsky, daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Aron Kazarnovsky, a leading figure of the U.S. Chabad movement.
Although just 22 when he came to Sherith Israel in 1949, Posner was able to connect with songwriters, singers, doctors, and Vanderbilt students and professors hungry for a Judaism that nourished them. He served as the congregation’s rabbi until his retirement in 2002 and then as rabbi emeritus until his death.
In 1954, Posner and his wife founded Akiva School, a Jewish day school that has since graduated hundreds of alumni who serve Jewish communities around the world.
A noted scholar, author and orator, Posner translated many Hasidic classics into English. One of his most popular works, Think Jewish, published in 1979 (Kesher Press) and reprinted in 2002, is a collection of essays that offers a contemporary view of Judaism and a Jewish view of the contemporary world.
Survivors include six children, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and four siblings.
Adapted with permission from an article by Charles Bernsen originally published in The Jewish Observer of Nashville.