Aliza Greenblatt

Greenblatt published five volumes of Yiddish poetry and an autobiography in Yiddish, Baym fentsṭer fun a lebn (A Window on a Life) and her works include such well-known Yiddish songs as Fisherlid, Amar Abaye, and Du, Du.

• Name — Aliza Greenblatt • Birth Name — Aliza Waitzman • Born — 8 September 1888 • Birthplace — Azarenits, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) • Died — 21 September 1975 • Place of death — New York, United States • Occupation — Writer, poet • Spouse — Isadore Greenblatt • Children — 5, including Marjorie Guthrie • Relatives — Arlo Guthrie (grandson) Richard Greenblatt (grandson) Nora Guthrie (granddaughter)

Aliza Greenblatt was born in Azarenits, Bessarabia in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), to Brokhe Bas-Tsion Rozovsky and Abraham Aronson. After her father died unexpectedly in 1893, her mother remarried and the family moved to Soroca. Aliza, her step-father, and her three step-brothers came to Philadelphia in 1900. Her mother and her younger sister immigrated in 1904 while her older sister arrived with her own family in 1922.

She married Isadore Greenblatt, also from Bessarabia, in 1907. The couple had five children, Herbert (b. 1908), David (b. 1914), Gertrude (b. 1915), Marjorie (b. 1917), and Bernard (b. 1921). In 1920 the couple made a failed attempt to move to Mandatory Palestine. Thirty years later they tried again, after the establishment of the Jewish state, but after a year of struggling with the difficult conditions, they moved back to the United States, to New York City. Isador's birth name was Isadore Stukelman. He is a cousin of Shifra Stukelman, and through her, cousin twice removed to Canadian composer Jan Randall (her grandson). Isador died in 1960, an active promoter of investment in Israel. Her daughter Marjorie was a dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company, and was married to folk musician Woody Guthrie. Marjorie's children are folk musician Arlo Guthrie; Nora Guthrie, president emeritus of The Woody Guthrie Foundation; and Joady Guthrie. Her nephew, and Aliza's grandson, is computer programmer Richard Greenblatt. In the late 1940s, when Greenblatt and her daughter Marjorie and her family were living across the street from each other in Coney Island, Brooklyn, Greenblatt and her son-in-law Woody Guthrie developed a collaborative relationship, discussing their respective artistic projects and critiquing each other's works. Aliza Greenblatt also helped found the Atlantic City, NJ chapters of the Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah and the Yidish Natsionaler Arbeter Farband. She was the president of the Pioneer Women. She was also involved in the fundraising for the Jewish National Fund and Histadrut.