Samuel D. Gruber has been a leader in the documentation, protection, and preservation of historic Jewish sites worldwide since 1988. He was the founding director of the Jewish Heritage Program of World Monuments Fund (1988-1996) and Research Director of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad (1998 through 2008). He presently directs Gruber Heritage Global, a cultural resource consulting firm, and is president of the not-for-profit International Survey of Jewish Monuments. He has taught as part-time faculty in Art History and Jewish Studies at Syracuse University since 1994 and has also taught courses at Binghamton, Colgate, Cornell, Temple Universities, and Le Moyne College.
Sam received his BA in Medieval Studies from Princeton University, his Ph.D. in Art and Architectural History from Columbia University, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome, where he won the prestigious Rome Prize in Art History. His doctoral dissertation (Medieval Todi: Studies in Architecture and Urbanism) and subsequent work present vernacular traditions in medieval architecture.
Sam writes and lectures about Jewish art and architecture; is author of American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community (2003), Synagogues (1999), and scores of reports, articles, and book chapter. Beginning in 2008, he has written the blog Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments. He is a frequent invited speaker and consultant across the United States and in Europe. Since 2020 he has presented 20 lectures online on topics and Jewish art, architecture, and historic preservation for the Orange County Community Scholars Program (available on Youtube).
Sam recently curated the online exhibitions Romaniote Memories (Queens College) and Life of the Synagogue and Synagogues of the South (College of Charleston), and the physical exhibition “A Sacred Space: Synagogue Architecture and Identity.”, “A Sacred Space: Synagogue Architecture and Identity.” at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (on view through March 7, 2024). Since 2021, Gruber has been a lead researcher on the International Holocaust Memorial Monument Database project, a partnership of the Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University; the Miller Center, University of Miami; and the International Survey of Jewish Monuments.
Beyond the Jewish realm, Gruber is past president of the Preservation of Association of Central New York and currently president of the Arts and Crafts Society of Central New York and the Westcott Neighbourhood Association. He is the author of many nominations of buildings and historic districts to the National Register of Historic Places, and he continues to lecture and publish about medieval art and architecture and the history of cities.
samuelgruber.com
