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Samuel D. Gruber (born 1956) is an American art and architectural historian and historic preservationist. 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.
Gruber was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania and lives in Syracuse, New York. He 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. [1] 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 archeology, 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).
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 organization International Survey of Jewish Monuments. [2] 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." [3] Since 2014 Gruber has been consultant to the Lost Shul Mural Project [4] in Burlington, Vermont. [5]
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 by survey teams that described their condition. These projects included full or partial surveys of Jewish sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina, [6] Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, [7] Poland, Romania, [8] Slovakia, Slovenia, [9] 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, [10] and is a frequent public lecturer in the United States and Europe. He has curated several exhibitions about Jewish architecture including the online "Life of the Synagogue" for the College of Charleston in 2015. [11]
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). [12] In 2013 he was keynote speaker at the conference "Managing Immovable Jewish Heritage in Europe" held in Kraków, Poland. [13] and in 2014 keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Southern Jewish Historical Society held in Austin, Texas [14]
Since 2001 he has been lecturer in Jewish Studies at Syracuse University. [15] where he teaches courses on Jewish art and architecture. He has also taught at Temple, Binghamton, Cornell and Colgate Universities and Cazenovia and LeMoyne Colleges.
Gruber is a dellow 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.
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. 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 [16] and co-chaired the Building Centennial Committee in 2010–11. [17] 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 [18] and serves on committees to preserve the former AME Zion church at 711 E. Fayette Committee and the Gustav Stickley House.
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It has a place for prayer where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, choir performances, and children's plays. They also have rooms for study, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and many places to sit and congregate. They often display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself.
The Zamość Synagogue, also the Zamość Old Synagogue or the Great Synagogue of Zamość, is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Zamość, in Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. Completed in 1618 in the Renaissance style, the synagogue is a UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site of Poland. Erected during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it functioned as a place of worship for Polish Jews until World War II, when the Nazis turned the interior into a carpenters' workshop. The structure was spared from destruction and in 1992 was listed as a World Heritage Site as part of the Old City of Zamość.
The Szydłów Synagogue is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, that is located at 3 Targowa Street, in Szydłów, in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship of Poland. The stone fortress synagogue with heavy buttresses on all sides was completed in 1564 in the Renaissance and Gothic Survival styles.
Ivan Čerešnješ, also known as Ivica Čerešnješ, is a Bosnian architect-researcher at the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem specializing in the documentation of the Jewish architectural-cultural heritage in the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe. During the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 he served as the president of the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and played a central role in the rescue and evacuation of thousands of Sarajevo residents.
The Vilna Shul was an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 18 Phillips Street, on the north slope of Beacon Hill, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. The synagogue building was built in 1919 for a congregation by immigrants primarily from Vilna, Lithuania.
The Wilshire Boulevard Temple, known from 1862 to 1933 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue at 3663 Wilshire Boulevard, in the Wilshire Center neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1862, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles.
The Sons of Jacob Synagogue, officially Congregation Sons of Jacob, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and historic synagogue and Jewish museum, located at 24 Douglas Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, in the United States.
The Angel Orensanz Center is an art and performance space at 172 Norfolk Street, between Stanton Street and East Houston Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was originally built as a synagogue, running through a succession of congregations and continues to be used as one occasionally as The Shul of New York.
Meserich Synagogue, Meserich Shul or Meseritz Shul, also known as Edes Israel Anshei Mesrich, Edath Lei'Isroel Ansche Meseritz or Adas Yisroel Anshe Mezeritz, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 415 East 6th Street, in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States.
Sidney Eisenshtat was an American architect who was best known for his synagogues and Jewish academic buildings.
The Włodawa Synagogue is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue complex, located at 5-7 Czerwonego Krzyża Street, in Włodawa, in the Lublin Voivodeship of Poland. The synagogue complex comprises the Włodawa Great Synagogue, the Small Synagogue or Beit midrash, and a Jewish administrative building, all now preserved as a Jewish museum.
Wooden synagogues are an original style of vernacular synagogue architecture that emerged in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The style developed between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, a period of peace and prosperity for the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community. While many were destroyed during the First and Second World Wars, there are some that survive today in Lithuania.
Historic synagogues include synagogues that date back to ancient times and synagogues that represent the earliest Jewish presence in cities around the world. Some synagogues were destroyed and rebuilt several times on the same site. Others were converted into churches and mosques or used for other purposes.
The Tykocin Synagogue is an historic former Jewish synagogue building, located in Tykocin, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. The synagogue was completed in 1643, in the Mannerist-early Baroque style.
The Sejny Synagogue, also called the White Synagogue in Sejny, is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 41 Piłsudskiego Street, in Sejny, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland. Designed in the Baroque Revival style and completed in 1885, the former synagogue was desecrated by Nazis during World War II and has been used as a Jewish museum and cultural center since 1987.
The Temple Society of Concord, commonly referred to as Temple Concord, is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 450 Kimber Road, in Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, in the United States.
The Center for Jewish Art (CJA) is a research institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, devoted to the documentation and research of Jewish visual culture. Established in 1979, it documented and researched objects of Jewish art in ca. 800 museums, libraries, private collections and synagogues in about 50 countries. Today, the Center's archives and collections constitute the largest and most comprehensive body of information on Jewish art and material culture in existence. The CJA's research and documentation is included in the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art.
Temple Beth-El was a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue at 945 Fifth Avenue and 76th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The synagogue operated between 1891 until c. 1929, and was demolished in 1947. The Temple Beth-El congregation merged with Congregation Emanu-El of New York in 1927.
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