Rebecca Gratz

Teaching America's Jewish Children

Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869) is best known for starting the first Jewish part-time religious school in America. She was born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family. Gratz organized the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children of Reduced Circumstances, and later helped found the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum. She then turned to the Jewish community and established the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1819, and in 1855 the Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum. In addition, Gratz raised the nine children of her deceased sister Rachel. Famously, Rebecca Gratz addressed the need for Jewish education of the community's children. In 1818, she opened the first American Hebrew Sunday School. She served as the school's president for almost fifty years, writing many of the lessons herself, and in later years sending copies of these lessons to another early Jewish part-time school in Charleston, SC. Gratz fell in love with a Christian man but refused to marry someone outside of her faith; she never married. Legend identifies Gratz as the prototype for Sir Walter Scott's character "Rebecca" in Ivanhoe, but the claim has never been proven.