On Tuesday, March 22, Judith Green Blumberg, passed away peacefully at the age of 80, surrounded by her loving family. Judith lived with her husband of 57 years, Dr. Joel Blumberg, in Greenwich for 49 years.
Born in The Bronx to Philip and Beatrice Green, Judith spent her childhood visiting the Bronx Botanical Garden where she developed her life-long love of flowers. She was later raised in Larchmont, New York with her younger sister Carol, her first best friend.
Judith went on to graduate from Cornell University in 1963, the first in her family to attend college. She then received her first Master’s degree from Teacher’s College, Columbia University the following year. While there, she met Joel Blumberg on a blind date. The story goes that Joel thought Judy was too beautiful to be his date so he pulled out a Sports Illustrated to read as he waited for his “correct” date to come along. After this almost missed connection, they were engaged within a month and were married at Larchmont Temple in 1964.
After three years in Stuyvesant Town, the young couple shipped off to Seattle for Joel to serve as a doctor in the United States Public Health Service. They then headed back to the East Coast, settling in Greenwich, where they raised their three daughters Amy, Hillary and Michelle.
Throughout her life, Judith was extremely committed to Israel and to Judaism. A member of Temple Sholom for 49 years, Judith made sure her daughters received a Jewish education and all three attended Bi-Cultural Day School in Stamford, Connecticut. Judith served as President of the Greenwich chapter of Hadassah and Chairperson of Zahal Shalom, an organization that sponsored trips to the United States for disabled Israeli veterans. Judith also made innumerable trips to Israel over the course of her life.
After a decade and a half of raising her children and volunteer service, Judith decided to go back to school and received her second Master’s in Educational Technology from Fairfield University. She became a technical writer in the 1980s, writing instruction manuals for software when few people even owned personal computers.
Judith wanted to make sure her three daughters became independent and self-sufficient. She was so proud when they became a health care lawyer and Vice President in the Legal Department of Kaiser Permanente, a design director and Trustee of the Rhode Island School of Design Board of Directors, and a Physician Assistant specializing in emergency medicine.
Judith’s greatest joy was being “Savta” to her eight grandchildren. Her first two grandchildren, Hannah and Jacob Hafey lived in Los Angeles. But not even a 3000-mile plane trip could keep her from attending Intergenerational Day at their elementary school every year. And she made sure to keep them busy every summer when they visited Greenwich to attend “Camp Blumberg”. Devoted to attending the recitals, plays, sports games of her grandchildren, who now included Lola and Liv Ginsburg and Lucas, Rebecca, Elliot and Bryce Weiner, she was banned from attending her granddaughter Lola’s recorder concerts after declaring that it wasn’t exactly the New York Philharmonic. Savta joyfully attended the grandchildrens’ Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and graduations, and even became roommates with her oldest grandchild Hannah and Hannah’s partner, Kaitlin, when they stayed in Greenwich for a year to work at an animation studio nearby.
In addition to being the best wife, mother, sister, mother-in-law and grandmother, Judith had a wonderful joie de vivre. She loved walking on Greenwich Point with her dear friends of many decades, singing show tunes at the dinner table, and religiously completing the New Times crossword puzzles. You could always count on Judith for a good laugh, a tough game of Scrabble, an even tougher game of Mahjong, and her undeniable ability to make you feel special. She had an uncanny talent of making a friend out of everyone she met and will be missed by family, friends, and acquaintances far and wide.
Judith is survived by her beloved husband Joel; her sister, Carol Remz of Seattle, WA; her daughters, Amy Hafey of Los Angeles, CA, Hillary Blumberg of New York, NY and Michelle Blumberg Weiner of Marlboro, NJ; sons-in-law, Matthew Hafey, Alex Ginsburg and Dr. Leonard Weiner; and her grandchildren: Hannah Hafey and her partner Kaitlin Smith, Jacob Hafey, Lola and Liv Ginsburg, and Lucas, Rebecca, Elliot and Bryce Weiner.
Services were held at Temple Sholom, Greenwich, on Friday, March 25. In lieu of flowers, Judith has requested that donations be made to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces or The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
