Herbert Greenberg

Herbert Greenberg, MSU emeritus professor, scholar, poet, birdwatcher and sparkling wit, who loved Asian cuisine as much as bagels and cream cheese, died May 24, 2025, at the age of 89, at McLaren Hospital in Lansing surrounded and embraced by his wife and children.

Born in Brooklyn, NY to Benjamin and Mildred (Malament) Greenberg on November 13, 1935, he earned his BA from Brooklyn College in 1956 and his MA and PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received an internship at Northwestern University and then joined the English department at Michigan State in 1964, retiring in 1998. His book on WH Auden, published by Harvard University Press, Quest for the Necessary: WH Auden and the Dilemma of Divided Consciousness, received a Scholar’s Award from the Modern Language Association. Although he taught modern British literature, he preferred the words of Shakespeare, and after his retirement moved to Downeast Maine where he taught Shakespeare’s plays to enthusiastic students at Sunrise Senior College at the University of Maine, Machias. In the tiny lobster village of Jonesport where he lived, he became a self-taught architect, completely redesigning the family’s 19th-century fixer-upper house into a magnificent seaside home. He returned to Michigan full-time in 2020.

Herb is survived by his wife, Etta Abrahams and their son, Jonas (partner, Mary Wardell) and his children from his first marriage to Judith Azrael (Washington State): Denise of San Francisco, Jeffrey (Alison Krupnick), of Portugal, and granddaughters Melanie (Seattle) and Maya (Los Angeles), cousin Pearl Brickman (Encino), as well as former student and unofficially adopted son, John Grassy (Helena). Herb was the anchor of his family, the one they turned to. Events in their lives never seemed quite real until they were shared with him. He was, is and will continue to be deeply loved and sorely missed.

Herb’s family is grateful to their friends, especially Jenifer Banks, Dyanne Machtel, and caregiver Shelley Brooks, to the staff of McLaren Hospital and Hospice, and to the Meridian Township Fire Department EMTs who became regular visitors at their Okemos home.

Memorial contributions, may be made to Doctors Without Borders doctorswithoutborders.org

No funeral service will be held but the family plans a small gathering in the future, to celebrate moments from Herb’s life, as well as his now-(locally)-famous poem, “Zooming Through Wal-Mart,” and his take on what it means to live 100 years.