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
Driven 2 Drive
Now Open!!
Following all CDC
guidelines THE GUIDE 2020/2021
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