Gratz College
Years, Focus
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20 THE GUIDE 2020/2021
Jesse Bernstein | JE Staff
S amantha Vinokor-Meinrath didn’t want to drop
what she was doing to go to graduate school for
education. As a Jewish educator, then in Washington, D.C.,
she needed to find a way to earn her Ed.D. without
giving up the chance to actually teach on a day-to-
day basis. She wanted a program that didn’t just
teach her how to be a better educator, but one that
would allow her to become a better Jewish educator.

Three years later, now living in the Cleveland
area, she’s finishing her graduate degree at Gratz
College. Learning exclusively online, she’s been able
to have everything she’d set her sights on, educa-
tionally and professionally.

The typical student of Gratz College, which cele-
brates its 125th anniversary this year, has changed.

That student once lived in the Philadelphia area and
was almost certainly Jewish; if they weren’t young
immigrants, they were the children and grand-
children of such people. They were there to learn
Hebrew language and Jewish studies, as both sub-
jects were still rare finds at mainstream colleges and
universities. They were probably going to become
teachers themselves.

But as Gratz has transitioned to a primarily
online institution, a process that began in 2001
and continues to this day, the student base has also
changed. Today, though still likely to be Jewish,
the typical student is almost certainly not within
commutable distance of Philadelphia, according to
Paul Finkelman, president of the college. They’re not



Celebrates 125
Now Online
Salon L’etoile
The staff of Gratz College, celebrating the 125th
anniversary of the school’s founding
COURTESY OF GRATZ COLLEGE
necessarily in the U.S. at all, he said, noting that
Gratz counts learners from Turkey and Vietnam
in its graduate student body. They’re probably
adults who already have a job, usually in educa-
tion, and are pursuing a graduate degree on the
side. So, how did that happen? How did a school that
began as four basement rooms at Congregation
Mikveh Israel turn into a global online center for
graduate study?
By the ’90s, according to Finkelman, it was
clear that Gratz would need to change to remain
essential. Relocating alongside Philadelphia’s
Jews, from those basement rooms in Old City to
Congregation Rodeph Shalom to Melrose Park,
Gratz’s offerings for students of all ages became
more widely available from other sources (though
programs like Jewish Community High School
remained popular). Mainstream colleges and
universities came to frequently offer degrees in
Hebrew and Jewish studies and, suddenly, Gratz’s
unique appeal was a little less, well, unique.

In the spring of 2001, Gratz experimented with
online education. Ruth Sandberg, the Leonard
and Ethel Landau Professor of Rabbinics at Gratz
College, and director of the BA in Jewish Studies
and Jewish Professional Studies and MA in
Interfaith Leadership, taught the first online class
at Gratz: Essential Rabbinic Belief.

This was not a universally welcomed decision
among the faculty, Sandberg said. Some professors
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