Ruther Gruber – American Jews

Ruther Gruber is a Jewish writer, journalist and photographer originally from US, who is known for her work in rehabilitant several Jews who were persecuted in Europe. She belonged to a Russian Jewish family. She was born in Philadelphia in September 30, 1911, lived year life as a child in Pennsylvania, and later moved to Europe for studies. She is known for rescuing several Jews from oppression under the Nazi Germany of Hitler (Servin, 2001). Ruther Gruber had completed her Ph. D.

studies in Cologne when she was only 20 years old, and at that time the youngest person in the world to earn a Ph. D degree. She had completed her Ph. D studies in Art History, Modern English Literature and German Philosophy. Gruber was shocked at the threats dictatorship under Hitler proved against the Jews. She was also concerned about Hitler’s feeling about other countries of the world such as US, Europe, etc. Once she completed her studies she returned to the US in the year 1931.

She joined a career as a journalist in the year 1932 and joined the New York Herald Tribune in the year 1935. She initially wrote a series of books about women facing communism and dictatorship. Ruth Gruber traveled to several countries including Siberia, Eastern Europe and the Northern parts of Soviet Union, which was first for any American journalist. Following this she was given an assignment by the President’s Roosevelt Sectary (Harold Ickes) for determining the whether Alaska could be militarized after the World War 2 (Jewish Virtual Library, 2009).

In the year 1944, Ruther Gruber was given the most important assignment of her life to lead a secret special mission in rescuing 1000 Jewish people from Nazi Germany who were imprisoned in concentration camps in Italy and bringing them back alive to America. Ruther Gruber worked as a General for this particular project. During her travel in the American ship from America to Europe, it was continuously attacked by German fighter planes and submarines.

Ruther Gruber managed to save the 1000 Jewish refugees from the concentration camps in Germany, but there was no law in the US that permitted the refugees to be free or to have residency in the US. The refugees were stationed in a decommissioned training camp in New York for 2 years, after which President Roosevelt decided to give them permanent residency in the US (due to strong recommendations from Gruber). These Jewish refugees later became radiologists in the US, developing new radiological techniques such as CT-scans and MRI-scans.

In 1946, once her role in the rehabilitation of the Jewish refugees was enabled, Gruber returned to her former profession with the New York Post. She was asked to cover the formation of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine (Gruber, 2003). Gruber played a role in ensuring the settlement of more than 100, 000 European Jewish refugees in the newly created state of Palestine in 1947. Gruber often accompanied the UN Special Committee on Palestine to missions to Europe and Middle East, representing the New York Herald.

She had captured the incidents of the attack by British destroyers on the American Pleasure Boat Exodus carrying Jewish refugees and orphans. Gruber strongly criticized the event and created a lot of awareness of the Nazi-like attacks of Britain on Jewish refugees. She was terrible troubled by the pain and suffering that Britain had given to Jewish people (Jewish Virtual Library, 2009). Gruber got married in the year 1951 and was more into writing for magazines and newspapers. She often travels to Israel and spends time in her farmhouse in Italy (Gruber, 2003).

Gruber is definitely a role model for the responsibilities she played whilst saving the 1000 Jewish refugees in Italy from the Nazi rule, ensuring that the 1000 refugees were effectively rehabilitated and also allowing the 100, 000 Jewish refugees to be resettled in the state of Israel. She was highly intelligent and motivated is clearly being suggested by her fulfilling her PhD when she was only 20 years. She was strongly against fascism and communism that created problems for women. Her photographs and writings strongly spoke her mind and what she wanted to fulfill in life.

She was against abuse of Jewish people in Europe and strongly felt that providing them with a separate state would create a new home. Gruber is one of the few persons in the world who worked for a strong cause and was motivated in her work. References Gruber, R. (2003). Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel, New York: Carroll & Graf. Jewish Virtual Library (2009). Ruth Gruber, Retrieved on June 6, 2009, from Web site: http://www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/biography/gruber. html Servin, M. (2001). Ruth Ellen Gruber, Retrieved on June 6, 2009, from Web site: http://www. giotto. org/jesse/gruber. html