Aliza Greenblatt

(1885 - 1975)

Born in Bessarabia, Greenblatt moved with her family to Philadelphia in 1900.  Seven years later she and her new husband- also a Bessarabian immigrant - moved to Atlantic City where she organized the Atlantic City branch of the farband, a Yiddish socialist charity.  After the Balfour Declaration, she established a branch of the Zionist Organization of America. Though she and her husband never successfully settled in Palestine, she dedicated much of her energy to raising funds for the Zionist movement and was national president of Pioneer Women.  Always close to the Yiddish community in the U.S., later in her life Greenblatt wrote beautiful Yiddish poetry; some poems were eventually put to music.  She and her husband had five children, including Marjorie, who later married Woody Guthrie and would become known for her activism for genetic diseases.

Sources: Jewish Women's Archive