Barnard Gratz

Barnard Gratz (1738 – 20 April 1801) was an American merchant and one of the founders of the Jewish community of Philadelphia.

Early life Barnard Gratz was born Issachar Ber in 1738 in Langendorf, Upper Silesia, Prussia (today Wielowieś, Poland). Barnard and his brother Michael were the two youngest of six children. began working for his cousin's business.

Coming to America Solomon Henry kept in correspondence with a Jewish trader in Philadelphia named David Franks, the co-owner of trading company Levy & Franks. Solomon's brother Jacob Henry worked as a clerk for Franks at Levy & Franks. When Jacob had earned enough to start a business of his own, Solomon arranged with David Franks for Barnard to take over Jacob's job as his clerk.

Gratz arrived in Philadelphia in 1754 and worked as a clerk for Franks for five years. Barnard was a community leader within the Jewish community, serving as one of the co-founders and the first parnas/president of Kahal Kodesh Mikveh Israel, the first synagogue in Philadelphia. Gratz was also one of several Jewish community leaders to protest the law in Pennsylvania that restricted political office to Christians.

Personal life Bernard Gratz married Richea Myers‐Cohen, a cousin of his friend Jonathan Simon's wife, in 1760. Their first child Fanny died as an infant and Myers-Cohen herself died while giving birth to the couple's second child, Rachel. While Gratz never remarried, his brother and sister-in-law helped raise Rachel. Rachel would later marry Solomon Etting of Baltimore and leave Philadelphia.

On April 20, 1801, while visiting Rachel in Baltimore, Gratz died.

Legacy In addition to his position as a founder of Mikveh Israel and one of the first Jewish leaders in Philadelphia, Barnard Gratz was part of Philadelphia's social circle in the late 1700s. A noted philanthropist, Gratz and his brother donated to the "Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb". The Gratz brothers also provided key investments for infrastructure in the early years of the United States.

The Gratz family continued to be an important part of the social fabric of Philadelphia, with later members of the family founding the Philadelphia Orphan Society, and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia, and Gratz College.