Blatt moved to Oklahoma City in 1906.[1] He became the rabbi for the congregation that would build the Temple B'nai Israel there and served in that position until 1946.[2] From 1906 to 1916 he was the only full-time rabbi in the state of Oklahoma.[3]
He is remembered for his classical reform approach, interfaith efforts (including guest speaking at many churches in Oklahoma City),[2] but also for his strident defense of the Jewish community in the face of anti-semitic accusations by the Guthrie Daily Leader newspaper (accusations that the state capitol's move from Guthrie to Oklahoma City was inappropriately orchestrated by a group of prominent Jewish businessmen in Oklahoma City).[4] Rabbi Blatt responded that the newspaper's claims were slanderous and that they were a “a disgrace to the civilization of our state.”[5][6]
Rabbi Blatt was also remembered for his work in helping to organize congregations in Tulsa, Enid, Shawnee and Ardmore, at times even serving as a kind of circuit preacher of sorts,[7] as well as his opposition towards Zionism, as recalled by his successor Rabbi Levinson: (he was) "staunchly opposed to Jewish nationalism and died broken-hearted (in 1946) in the thought that the Reform movement had made peace with political Zionism."[8] He was even described as being a "bitter anti-zionist" by Rabbi Randall Falk of Tulsa.[9]
Blatt was a part-time professor at the School of Religion at the University of Oklahoma starting in 1915. In 1932, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. He died in 1946.[1]