Background
Joseph Saul Gruss was born on March 19, 1903 to a Jewish family in Lviv, one of seven children. His father, Isaac, was a Talmudic scholar and banker. His mother belonged to a family involved in the export grain business.
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Joseph Saul Gruss
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In 1939, Gruss founded a travel agency in New York City. Their first born child and many of their relatives perished in the Holocaust. In 1942, he founded the Wall Street firm, Gruss & Company, which focused on mergers and arbitrage primarily in the oil and gas industries.
Thereafter, he engaged in oil and gas exploration and development primarily in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and West Virginia.
In the 1970s, Gruss focused on philanthropy particularly for Jewish education. He supported hundreds of Jewish schools and thousands of students and educators.
He funded Yeshiva University"s Caroline and Joseph South. Gruss Institute in Jerusalem. The Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph South. Gruss Visiting Professorship in Talmudic Civil Law.
And the Fund for Jewish Education in association with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United Jewish Appeal of New New York
In 1989, he funded the expansion of the White Plains campus of the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester to help accommodate the demands of Westchester"s largest Jewish day school. The Gruss Life Monument Fund was founded in 1991 to continue his charitable activities after his death. The Joseph South Gruss Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn, New York bears his name.
Gruss died on July 3, 1993.
