RAUCH, EDUARDO

RAUCH, EDUARDO (1940–2002), Jewish educator. Rauch was born in Chile to a family that fled Romania before the Holocaust. He was raised and educated in Santiago, receiving a master's degree in biochemistry from the Universidad de Chile. In his student years he was deeply affected by Zionism, partially through meeting the charismatic Argentinean Jewish educator Jaime *Barylko, and in the wake of the Six-day War, led a delegation of Latin American volunteers to Israel. He spent three years in Israel working in the No'ar vehe-Halutz department of the Jewish Agency under Shelomo Dinur and Mordechai (Morele) Bar-On. In Israel he met and married his wife.

Rauch was elected secretary general of the World Union of Jewish Students (wujs) and relocated to the wujs headquarters in London, where he stayed from 1970 to 1973. After his term at wujs ended, Rauch moved to America so that he could work on a doctorate in education at Harvard. He completed his degree in 1978 and accepted a position at the Melton Research Center for Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Two years later he and Barry W. Holtz became co-directors of Melton, serving in that position for 12 years. Rauch taught on the Seminary's education faculty, was the co-creator and editor of The Melton Journal (in its time one of the liveliest publications in the field), invented innovative educational projects such as the Melton Teacher Retreat Program, and helped build the Melton Center as a national force in American Jewish education. He published numerous reviews, poems, and essays on a wide range of topics. In a language that was not his native tongue, he was a powerful writer and a remarkable editor. His history of American Jewish education, The Education of Jews and the American Community, was published by Tel Aviv University Press posthumously in 2004.

[Barry W. Holtz (2^nd ed.)]