Isidore Greengrass

New London-Rabbi Isidore Greengrass, 96, most recently of Tampa Florida, but a long time resident of Park Street, New London died on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, at Melech Hospice House in Tampa, Florida. Born in Lomza, Poland, on December 12, 1912, he was the son of the late Moshe Greengrass. His mother, Rachel Greengrass, died when he was a toddler. He received his rabbinical education in Ostrow, Kletsk, and Lomza, Poland. He married his first wife, Sara Libie in Lomza and had a daughter Rachel. His wife and daughter were killed upon their arrival at the concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Rabbi Greengrass was enslaved for two years. He managed to survive the concentration camps and death marches at the end of the war. He was instrumental in saving his cousin Mark Lichtenstein, who he met in the camps. He was a major leader in organizing the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Regensburg, Germany, shortly after his liberation by the American Third Army. He met his second wife, Frieda, while residing in Regensburg, awaiting visas to either the United State or what was then Palestine. Upon arrival in the United States, Rabbi Greengrass resided in New York prior to serving congregation in Troy, New York, and Hazelton, Pennsylvania. He then served a congregation in Norwich, Connecticut, for three years, prior to moving to New London where he served Congregation Beth El for over fifty years. Towards the end of his life, he wintered in Aventura, Florida, while spending the rest of the year in New London. He was instrumental in maintaining Temple Israel on Park Street in New London. His life story and details of his years in the Holocaust are chronicled in his book, Judaism Is Indestructible. Surviving are sons, Martin Greengrass and wife Judy of Lutz, FL., and Roy Greengrass, and wife, June Hardy, of Byron, CA. He has two grandchildren, Rabbi Rachel Greengrass and her husband, John Crary, of Miami, Florida, and Sara Greengrass, who is with the American Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel. He was predeceased by his loving wife, Frieda Greengrass