Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi's most significant role was as one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement, a position that defined much of his public identity and the record of his career as a rabbi, scholar, and activist.

Born in Zhovkva in August 1924, he later became a citizen of the United States and undertook formal education at Boston University and at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. These institutions provided the academic and rabbinic grounding for his subsequent work as a university teacher, a religious studies scholar, and a Judaic scholar. Over time he also worked as a writer and an activist, roles that accompanied his identity as a rabbi throughout his adult life.

Commonly called "Reb Zalman," his full name was Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and he carried both the scholarly credentials of his university training and the pastoral standing of an ordained rabbi. His founding participation in the Jewish Renewal movement placed him among those who gave that movement its organizational and intellectual shape, a contribution that remained central to how he was identified during his lifetime and after.

Schachter-Shalomi died in Boulder on July 3, 2014, having been born in Zhovkva some nine decades earlier. The Library of Congress catalogued him under the authorized label "Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman, 1924–2014," a designation that anchors his place in the bibliographic record and reflects the written output associated with his name across his career as a rabbi, teacher, and writer.