Ruth Gruber

Biography

Ruth Gruber (1911–2016) was a trailblazing American journalist, author and humanitarian who gave the pre-state struggle a voice and an image. Though never a military volunteer, she was a key American figure in the establishment of Israel — as a reporter and photographer she chronicled events that influenced and hastened independence.

In 1944 she escorted 1,000 Holocaust survivors from Europe to the United States. In 1947 the New York Herald Tribune assigned her to cover the Aliyah Bet ship Exodus 1947 on its journey to Haifa. She witnessed the British ramming and seizure of the ship, followed the 4,500 refugees to internment in Cyprus and then to Port-de-Bouc, France, and photographed them held in wire cages aboard the prison ship Runnymede Park, raising a Union Jack defaced with a swastika. Her reportage of the refugees being forced back to Germany created a worldwide uproar that helped turn opinion toward the UN partition decision of November 29, 1947.

At the age of 74 she visited the Jews of Ethiopia, recounting their rescue in her book Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews. For years she was a friend of the American Veterans of Israel, attending and participating in many AVI functions. She died on November 17, 2016, at the age of 105. May her memory be a blessing.

Read the full tribute — “Ruth Gruber, Z"L” by Daniel Fliegler →