Samuel D. Gruber

For the biologist, see Samuel H. Gruber.

Samuel D. Gruber is an American art and architectural historian. He has written extensively on the architecture of the synagogue and is an expert and activist in the documentation, protection and preservation of historic Jewish sites and monuments. He was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania and lives in Syracuse, New York.

He is Director of Gruber Heritage Global which includes the Jewish Heritage Research Center (Syracuse, NY), a private consulting firm; and President of the not-for-profit educational International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM).[1] From 1989 until 1995 he served as founding director of the Jewish Heritage Council of the World Monuments Fund and from 1998 through 2008 as Research Director of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. In these roles Gruber has been, in the words of journalist Bill Gladstone, "in the vanguard of an international movement to restore endangered Jewish heritage sites around the world." [2]

In the decade and a half following the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe (1990-2005), Gruber organized and supervised for the World Monuments Fund and the U.S. Commission more than a dozen countrywide surveys of cultural heritage sites of significance to religious and ethnic minorities. These identified, mostly for the first time, thousands of previously unrecognized and undocumented synagogues, churches, mosques, cemeteries and Holocaust-related sites, almost all of which were visited and by survey teams that described their condition. These projects included full or partial surveys of Jewish sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina,[3] Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,[4] Poland, Romania,[5] Slovakia, Slovenia,[6] and Ukraine; Roma sites in Poland; Old Believers sites in Lithuania; and Protestant Christian and Muslim sites in Bulgaria.

He is author or editor of numerous articles and survey reports about Jewish monuments,[7] and is a frequent public lecturer in the United States and Europe.

In 1990, for the World Monuments Fund, Gruber organized and chaired the first international conference on the preservation of Jewish historic sites. He curated the accompanying exhibition "The Future of Jewish Monuments" at the Joseph Gallery of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Since then he has participated and helped organize many related conferences and seminars including ones in Paris (1999), Prague (2004), and Bratislava (2009).[8]

Since 2001 he has been Lecturer in Judaic Studies at Syracuse University.[9] where he teaches courses on Jewish art and architecture. He has also taught at Temple, Binghamton, Cornell and Colgate universities.

From 2010 through 2012 Gruber was curator of the Plastics Collection at the Special Collection Research Center (SCRC) at the Syracuse University Library.

Gruber was trained as a medievalist and architectural historian and is an expert on medieval urbanism, and especially Italian medieval towns and cities.

Education

Gruber attended the American Overseas School of Rome from which he graduated in 1973. His father, anthropologist Jacob W. Gruber was director of Temple University's Rome campus, and it was there that he developed his love or architecture.[10] While there he studied Art History with urban historian Allan Ceen. Gruber received his B.A. degree in Medieval Studies from Princeton University where he studied with Joseph Strayer, William Chester Jordan, Robert Bergman, David Coffin, Robert Hollander and other distinguished scholars. He received his M.A, M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in the History of Art and Archaeology, where he studied with Richard Brilliant, Alfred Frazer, Jerrilynn Dodds, Howard Hibbard, David Rosand, Joseph Connors, George Collins and other professors. His master's paper was a study of early medieval and Longobard masonry in Italy. His doctoral dissertation was study of the architecture and urbanism of medieval Todi (Italy).

Awards and honors

Gruber is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He is recipient of many grants individually, or for projects with which he is involved. Since 2006 he has received research grants from the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation, the AIA New York Chapter, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Community service

In addition to his work for the International Survey of Jewish Monuments, which he took over from Raina Fehl, Gruber serves on many charitable boards and advisory committees. He was Executive Director of the Preservation Association of Central New York in 1999-2000, and served as Board President of the organization from 2004 through 2009. Since 2009 he has written the blog My Central New York[11] about historic preservation, history and architecture in Central New York. He has also served on the Facilities Community of Temple Society of Concord (Temple Concord) in Syracuse since 1998 for which he researched and wrote the National Register of Historic Places nomination in 2008[12] and co-chaired the Building Centennial Committee in 2010-11.[13] Gruber has been active for many years in efforts to document, protect and preserve historic houses of worship in Central New York. He has provided historical and art commentary on South Presbyterian Church and Holy Trinity Church[14] and serves on the Save 711 E. Fayette Committee formed to preserve the former AME Zion church.

Books

External links

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Bill Gladstone, "Man with a Mission," The Wanderer: Magazine of Jewish Heritage & Travel (Spring 1999), 6-9.
  3. ↑ "Jewish Heritage Sites of Bosnia-Herzegovina" (2011)
  4. ↑ "Jewish Heritage Sites and Monuments in Moldova" (2010)
  5. ↑ http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=rel
  6. ↑ "Jewish Cemeteries, Synagogues, and Monuments in Slovenia" (2005)
  7. ↑ http://works.bepress.com/samuel_gruber/
  8. ↑ Ruth Ellen Gruber, "Virtually Jewish," University of California Press, 2002, pp. 98-9
  9. ↑ http://as-cascade.syr.edu/students/undergraduate/interdisciplinary/judaic-studies/People.html
  10. ↑ Melanie Johnson, "Love of architecture began as a teen," The Syracuse Newspapers (Feb. 25, 1999)
  11. ↑ My Central New York
  12. ↑ Adler, Jonathan, "Temple Concord placed on National Register of Historic places by New York state," Jewish Observer(Syracuse, NY)(July 30, 2009)
  13. ↑ Fernando Alfonso III, "Sanctuary Turns 100: Temple Concord celebrates its long history in Syracuse," The Post-Standard (March 12, 2011)
  14. ↑ "Holy Trinity group thanks backers for preservation designation," The Post-Standard (July 24, 2010)