Recipient Spotlight

Remembering the recipients of the Rebbe’s English letters whose yahrtzeits fall this week.

Professor Velvl Greene

Professor Velvl (Zeev) Greene (1928–2011) was a scientist and academic specializing in public health and bacteriology. He served as a professor at the University of Minnesota and later at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He also worked for NASA on an exobiology program aimed at determining the presence of microbes in outer space.

Coming from a secular background, Prof. Greene underwent a profound spiritual transformation in the 1960s, beginning with his encounter with Rabbi Moshe Feller, the Rebbe’s shliach in Minnesota. Through Rabbi Feller he was introduced to the Rebbe, with whom he developed a close personal relationship, eventually becoming a Baal Teshuvah and devoted Chossid of the Rebbe.

Over the following decades, the Rebbe took a keen interest in Prof. Greene’s scientific research and guided him in his personal life and in his efforts to spread Yiddishkeit. Their extensive correspondence covered a wide range of subjects, from Torah and science to personal and communal matters.

Prof. Greene merited to receive dozens of letters from the Rebbe, most of which were later published in Professor Greene, Shalom U’vrachah (Hebrew), and are available on the Rebbe Responsa app and website.