“I was born in a shtetl called Brooklyn… I thought everyone was Jewish,” journalist Ruth Gruber said. Author of 19 books, Gruber was presented with The Common Good’s American Spirit Award on February 3 by Ann Curry, news anchor of the NBC-TV show “Today,” at a screening of the Gruber documentary “Ahead of Time,” held at The Paley Center for Media. As a 20-year old exchange student at the University of Cologne in 1931, she earned her doctorate. In September 2011, Gruber will celebrate her 100th birthday. She recalled her father saying, “What kind of a career is that for a Jewish girl?” about her decision to become a journalist. “My parents were apoplectic about my going to hear Hitler speak…. I will never forget his voice, calling for death to the Jews, death to America.” Recalling her life as a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, she described flying to Israel “for my last interview with Ben-Gurion…. I asked him, ‘Will there be peace?’ He said: ‘Yes, there will be peace. It will come from Egypt…. A whole generation will grow up to live side by side…. They will help us. Not in my time, maybe in yours and maybe in your children’s.’” Among the evening’s guests and participants were Patricia Duff, founder of the not-for-profit, nonpartisan legal reform coalition The Common Good; Patti Kenner, executive producer of “Ahead of Time”; New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, and former first lady of New York State Michelle Paige Paterson […]
- Masha Leon for Forward (fka Jewish Forward), READ MORE
