Q:

Is static Initializer in JAVA a closure

I was wondering if static Initializer in Java as shown below is a closure which groovy built on to implement the language.
public class className{
   static{

   }
}

Thanks.

A:

No. That is a block. Groovy also has these.
class A {
  static {
    println "static init block"
  }

  {
    println "init block"
  }

  def closure = {
    println "closure field"
  }
}

a = new A()

The code above will print:
$ groovy Block.groovy 
static init block
init block

