Rabbi Seth Grauer of Bergenfield has been named recipient of a Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.

Grauer, a faculty member at and a 1996 graduate of the Ramaz Upper School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was honored as an outstanding classroom-based teacher working in a formal Jewish educational setting.

"We are delighted that Rabbi Grauer has been recognized by the Grinspoon Foundation," said, Ira Miller, dean of the Ramaz Upper School. "Seth is a master educator whose dedication to his students is genuine and profound."

"Through his commitment to chinuch (Jewish education) and to a life of Torah and mitzvot," Miller said, "he is helping to shape the next generation of Jewish leadership."

Though he is now in his sixth year teaching at Ramaz, Grauer did not choose Jewish education as a profession until well after he graduated from Yeshiva University with an honors degree in history. He attended Fordham Law School at night so that he could concurrently complete work for simcha from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University.

He taught just one class at his high school alma mater for a year to complete a requirement for smicha, and, by the end of the year, had "enjoyed teaching so much and felt such a wonderful sense of fulfillment in the classroom" that he made the decision to switch careers from law to Jewish education.

Having received his juris doctor from Fordham in 2000 and smicha from RIETS in 2003, he is now pursing a doctoral degree at the Azrieli School of Education at Yeshiva University.

At Ramaz, he teaches three courses in Talmud, at different levels, to 10th- 11th- and 12th-grade students. In addition, he professionalized the Israel Guidance Office. He now coordinates that Office, which includes providing direct advisement and guidance to the senior boys and coordinating the visits and process for all seminaries and programs to Ramaz.

Grauer lives in Bergenfield with his wife and three children.

The Ramaz School is a coeducational Modern Orthodox day school with classes from nursery through 12th grade.