Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald's children share the backstory of this master educator, fearless negotiator, skilled diplomat, and advocate for his people

Photos: Meir Haltovsky, Family archives

He has been lauded as “a master of international negotiation,” a “one-man chesed organization,” and a “legend among lifesavers,” but no matter how many unpronounceable countries he traveled to; how many hostage negotiations he was involved in; and how many world leaders, kings, presidents, military commanders, and spies he met with, Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald was simply “Tatty” to his six children

That was the recurring theme that emerged during the conversations I had with the entire Greenwald brood ahead of the September 1 release of Ronnie: The Extraordinary Life of Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, written by Suri Cohen, edited and expanded by Rabbi Chananya Greenwald, and published by ArtScroll. The long-awaited book provides a glimpse into the life of the man whose enormous heart had him constantly searching for ways to better the lives of others.

After spending multiple (wonderful!) hours chatting with Mrs. Basya Wolff, Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald, Mrs. Chevy Lapin, Rabbi Chananya Greenwald, Reb Yisroel Greenwald, and Mrs. Chana Shterna Lewenstein about their father, it was clear that the book’s 500-plus pages were just the tip of the iceberg, and that only a series of several similar-length books could accurately describe all that Rabbi Greenwald stood for and everything he accomplished in his 82 years on this earth. An educator, a father figure, a diplomat, a world traveler, a covert operative, a community activist — Rabbi Greenwald was all those things and more. But first and foremost, he was a devoted father to his children, one who led by example, always making clear in his actions that he truly believed in their ability to rise to their maximum potential.

Capeless Hero

Most small children think of their fathers as superheroes, a notion that they typically outgrow as the years go by, but things were different in the Greenwald home. Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald remembers one of the many times his father cemented his reputation for being able to accomplish just about anything, while also providing a glimpse of the enormity of his heart.

When a blizzard struck Brooklyn in the late 1970s, making the streets nearly impassable, Rabbi Greenwald set out on foot to retrieve his two oldest children, Basya and Zecharya, from school.

“The snow was so deep I couldn’t walk in it,” shares Reb Zecharya, today a veteran  mechanech and longtime head of Me'ohr Seminary in Jerusalem. “My father picked me up from Toras Emes, on 46th Street, and carried me on his shoulders to Bais Yaakov, about three blocks away, where he picked up my sister and held her in his arms.”

The walk home from Bais Yaakov of Boro Park was approximately 11 streets and one avenue block long. Despite the considerable distance, Rabbi Greenwald trudged through what must have been two feet of snow carrying his elementary schoolers the entire way. Then, concerned that there were students still in Toras Emes anxiously awaiting their own parents, Rabbi Greenwald went back out in the heavy snow to the yeshivah, staying for hours until the last child had been picked up.

“When I was growing up, we thought our father was Superman without the kryptonite,” recalls Reb Chananya, rosh yeshivah of TJ. “If you asked me if he could be president of the United States I would have said yes. We had magical thinking of him — what can’t Tatty fix? What can’t he figure out?”

“As a kid, you grow up thinking your father can do anything, but by the time kids are eight or ten they realize that this isn’t true,” adds Reb Zecharya. “But by the time I was twenty years old, I knew he could do anything.”

Far from being content with that image, Rabbi Greenwald made sure to instill in his children a sense of confidence in their own abilities, something longtime teacher Mrs. Wolff discovered as a kid during a family outing that involved pony rides.

“I was very not in love with animals and this whole ride I’m screaming, ‘I’m falling off!’ ” she remembers. “Tatty kept saying, ‘It’s okay, you’re not falling.’ He really believed we could try new things and be okay with them, and while I wasn’t okay with that in the moment, I knew he believed in me and that all I had to do was try.”

That same lesson was communicated to two generations of Greenwald children, with Rabbi Greenwald sharing that success and failure are both part of life.

“‘Not everything I tried worked, but you keep on trying,’ he would tell the kids,” says Mrs. Wolff. “That’s the big mussar. Just keep trying, go for it. Don’t be afraid.”

After once telling his father that something was impossible, Reb Zecharya got a life lesson he would never forget.

“He told me that the difference between possible and impossible was 15 minutes of trying, and that he never wanted to hear the word ‘impossible,’ ” says Reb Zecharya.