Rebecca Gratz

Rebecca Gratz - portrait of Thomas Sully

Rebecca Gratz (born March 4, 1781 in Lancaster , Pennsylvania , † August 27, 1869 there ) was an American philanthropist .

Gratz was the seventh of twelve children to the married couple Miriam Simon and Michael Gratz. Her mother was the daughter of Joseph Simon (1712-1804), an eminent Jewish merchant from Lancaster. Her father came from a long line of rabbis from Upper Silesia ( cf.Jüdischer Friedhof (Wielowieś) ), but originally from Grodzisk near Posen and had to emigrate due to the applicable laws, according to which only the first-born son of a Jewish family could obtain the right of home in the place of birth . Her parents were devout Jews and active members of the first Jewish community in Philadelphia, Mikveh Israel .

Graetz has been active as a philanthropist since she was twenty by helping families suffering from the aftermath of the war of independence and providing asylum for orphans. She was the secretary of the board of this institution. Under their aegis, a Jewish Sunday school was established in 1838. Gratz became their superintendent and president until her resignation in 1864. She participated in the development of curricula. Gratz was also a founding member of a charity for Jewish women in November 1819.

It is believed that Rebecca Graetz was the model of Rebecca, the daughter of the Jewish merchant Isaac of York, the heroine in the novel Ivanhoe by Walter Scott . Scott's attention for Gratz's character was inspired by Washington Irving , a close friend of the Gratz family.

Gratz never married.

Her portrait was painted twice by the well-known American artist Thomas Sully .

Gratz is buried in the family grave of Graetz Mikveh Israel Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

literature

• Dianne C. Ashton: Female Hebrew Benevolent Society. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 2: Co-Ha. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02502-9 , pp. 330–333.
• Marcus Brann : Something from the Silesian rural community. In: Martin Philippson (ed.): Festschrift for the seventieth birthday of Jakob Guttmann . G. Fock, Leipzig 1915, pp. 225-255. (Writings of the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Judaism, 26)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marcus Brann: Something from the Silesian rural community. P. 247, passim .
2. ^ The Original of Rebecca in Ivanhoe. In: The Century Magazine. 1882, pp. 679-682.
3. ^ Portrait of Rebecca Gratz, Rosenbach Museum. ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (last checked on August 31, 2011)