Joseph Saul Gruss (March 19, 1903 – July 3, 1993)Gruss Life Monument Fund: "Our Founders – The Gruss Life Monument Funds was established in 1991 to perpetuate the philanthropic endeavors of Caroline and Joseph Gruss. Mrs. Gruss died in 1987, Mr. Gruss in 1993, but there is no doubt that their legacy is eternal"
retrieved March 12, 2015 was an Austro-Hungarian Empire–born American financier, businessman, and philanthropist who supported

Jewish education Jewish education ( he, חינוך, ''Chinuch'') is the transmission of the tenets, principles, and religious laws of Judaism. Known as the "people of the book", Jews value education, and the value of education is strongly embedded in Jewish cu ...

.New York Times: "Joseph Gruss, 91, Philanthropist Who Supported Jewish Schools" By ERIC PACE
July 5, 1993

Early life

Joseph Saul Gruss was born on March 19, 1903, to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire as one of seven children. His father, Isaac, was a

Talmudic The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

scholar and banker; his mother belonged to a family involved in the export grain business.

Career

In 1939, Gruss founded a travel agency in New York City. While he and his wife were in the United States, the Nazis invaded eastern Europe, and they were unable to return home. Their first-born child and many of their relatives were murdered in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. In 1942, he founded the Wall Street firm Gruss & Company, The Tikvah Center at NYU School of Law: "The Annual Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Lecture"
retrieved March 12, 2015 which focused on mergers and arbitrage primarily in the oil and gas industries. Thereafter, he engaged in

oil and gas exploration Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology. Exploration methods Vis ...

and development primarily in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, Oklahoma,

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

, and

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

Philanthropy

In the 1970s, Gruss focused on philanthropy particularly for Jewish education. He supported hundreds of Jewish schools and thousands of students and educators. He funded

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

's Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute in Jerusalem; the Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph S. Gruss Visiting Professorship in Talmudic Civil Law; and the Fund for Jewish Education in association with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the

United Jewish Appeal The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1939 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Co ...

of New York. In 1989, he funded the expansion of the White Plains campus of the

Solomon Schechter School of Westchester The Leffell School (formerly Solomon Schechter School of Westchester) is a K–12 private, co-educational, Jewish day school in New York, United States. It was established in 1966 by Max Gelb and operates on two campuses; a Lower School (K–5) ...

to help accommodate the demands of Westchester's largest Jewish day school. The Gruss Life Monument Fund was founded in 1991 to continue his charitable activities after his death. The upper school of the

Kamenitz Yeshiva Yeshivas Knesses Beis Yitzchak was an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva, founded in Slabodka on the outskirts of Kaunas, Lithuania (then ruled by the Russian Empire), in 1897. The yeshiva later moved to Kamyenyets, then part of Poland, and currently i ...

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

is named Joseph S Gruss Yeshiva High School.

Personal life

In 1934, he married Caroline Zelaznik (died 1987), a lawyer. They had three children. Their first child died in the Holocaust. Their surviving children, born in the United States, were Martin David Gruss and Evelyn Gruss Lipper. His daughter was married to the Hollywood producer, author, and former New York City deputy mayor Kenneth Lipper.

Death and legacy

Gruss died of heart failure on July 3, 1993. His grandson, Joshua Carl Gruss, married the fashion designer

Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss Shoshanna Lonstein-Gruss (born May 29, 1975) is an American writer and fashion designer and the founder and creative director of the fashion label Shoshanna, which was launched in 1998. Early life Shoshanna Lonstein was born and raised in Manhatt ...

.New York Times: "WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Shoshanna Lonstein, Joshua Gruss"
May 11, 2003

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruss, Joseph S. 1903 births 1993 deaths American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American business executives Polish emigrants to the United States Ukrainian Jews 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American philanthropists 20th-century American Jews