Ruth Ellen Gruber is an American writer, photographer, and independent scholar living in Europe. For nearly 20 years, she has chronicled Jewish cultural developments and other contemporary European Jewish issues. She coined the term “Virtually Jewish” to describe the way the so-called “Jewish space” in Europe is often filled by non-Jews. Her latest books are “National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe,” published in 2007, and “Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere),” published in 2008. She also is working on “Sauerkraut Cowboys: Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe,” an exploration of the American West in the European imagination for which she received a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEH summer stipend grant.
From January-March 2011 she has been named Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University.
For further information, full bio and CV, go to Ruth’s web site: www.ruthellengruber.com
