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.
Joseph Gruss was born on March 19, 1903 in Lvov, the youngest of seven children of a major Polish banking family. His father, Isaac, was a Talmudic scholar as well as banker, and his mother’s family was in the export grain business. Between the two world wars, Lvov had the third largest Jewish community in Poland and was known for its rich Jewish intellectual life. It was also visited by rampant anti-Semitism and pogroms, which the family survived.
In 1934, Joseph married Caroline Zelaznik, daughter of a Czechoslovakian army officer and, herself, an attorney who clerked for a Polish judge. The young family prospered and, in 1939, Joseph Gruss established a travel bureau in New York so that he could regularly leave Poland. He and Caroline were in the US when the Polish borders were closed. Much of their family, including their first-born child, perished in the Holocaust.
In New York, Mr. Gruss founded an investment trading company. Investments in natural gas and petroleum exploration were also successful. He and Caroline had two children, Evelyn Gruss Lipper, M.D. and Martin D. Gruss, and six grandchildren.
In 1968, Mr. Gruss became aware of the particular problems in Jewish education -- insufficient salaries for teachers and unsafe, unsanitary conditions in the schools, among others. Thus began one philanthropist’s unique vision. From that time on, Caroline and Joseph Gruss became the foremost benefactors of Jewish education in the world. During their lifetimes, they supported hundreds of Jewish schools and thousands of students and educators. In Israel, schools and child-care centers and medical units bear the Gruss name as well.