Nashville icon Rabbi Posner dead at 87

A warm, cheerful man who was the face of Orthodox Judaism in Nashville for half a century died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, California. Rabbi Zalman I. Posner was 87.

Born in Palestine, Rabbi Posner emigrated to the U.S. with his family and became a student of the Torah at Central Lubavitcher Yeshivah in New York. In 1948, he traveled to Europe to assist Holocaust survivors and Russian Jews fleeing dictator Joseph Stalin, who were living in refugee camps, a Chabad.org obituary said.

The following year, Rabbi Posner received a rabbinic post at Congregation Sherith Israel in Nashville and quickly became a well known figure on the city's religious landscape.

Marvin "Mosh" Koch remembered the rabbi, a celebrated scholar, translator and author, debating religion with Vanderbilt University professors. On a more personal note, he taught both Koch and Koch's two sons for their bar mitzvahs.

Posner and his wife, Risya, started Nashville's Akiva School, which still operates today. Koch's wife, Evelyn Koch, worked with Rabbi Posner there and is president of Congregation Sherith Israel.

"He was very personal with the kids — you couldn't make him angry," she said. "Whereas some do outreach, bringing new people in, he was doing in-reach, trying to bring Jews back. With his warmth and hospitable nature, he managed to make connections with people from all walks of life."

Rabbi Posner retired in 2002, using his final Passover — an observance that uses symbolism to represent the Jews' exodus from Egypt — to share a message of hope. In a Tennessean article marking the occasion, he remembered his first Nashville Passover.

"A guest at the table, a boy of about 12, asked me, 'Why do we say this year we are slaves but next we will be free?'" he remembered.

"I asked the boy, 'Why does your father work on Saturdays? Wouldn't he rather be at the synagogue?' There are many kinds of slavery, including economic slavery. There are all kinds of Egypts."

Mark Freedman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Nashville, said the rabbi "played such a critically important role in transforming and strengthening this Jewish community."

After several years of retirement spent writing, lecturing and advising the congregation as rabbi emeritus at Sherith Israel, Rabbi Posner moved to California. He had five children.

The funeral is Friday in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Reach Heidi Hall at 615-726-5977 or on Twitter @HeidiHallTN.