Meir Zlotowitz
rabbi
Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz (13 July 1943 – 24 June 2017) was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, author and founder of ArtScroll Publications.
Early life
A native of Brooklyn, Meir attended Yeshivas Rabbi Jacob Joseph (RJJ) on the Lower East Side of New York. He went on to attend Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem and was a student of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, from whom he received semikhah (rabbinic ordination).
ArtScroll
After graduation, Zlotowitz, who as a youth used his talent in art to overcome his stuttering, became director of a high-end graphics studio in New York. The firm, named ArtScroll Studios, produced brochures, invitations, awards and ketubahs. Rabbi Nosson Scherman, then principal of Yeshiva Karlin Stolin Boro Park, was recommended to Zlotowitz as someone who could write copy, and they collaborated on a few projects.
In late 1975, he wrote an English translation and commentary on the Book of Esther in memory of a young married friend, a rebbe in Yeshiva Torah Emes who died childless, and asked Scherman to write the introduction. The manuscript was completed in honor of the shloshim (the 30-day commemoration of a death) and "was published in February 1976, just in time to market it for Purim that year." Its first edition of 20,000 copies sold out within two months. With the encouragement of Rabbi Moses Feinstein, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky and other Rabbis considered Gedolei Yisrael or eminent rabbis, the two continued producing commentaries, beginning with a translation and commentary on the rest of the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Ruth), and went on to publish translations and commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, Talmud, Passover Haggadah, siddurs and machzors. By 1990 ArtScroll had produced more than 700 books, including novels, history books, children's books and secular textbooks, and became one of the largest publishers of Jewish books in the United States.
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