APPENDIX XVI
Appendix XVI provides a biography of Jack Ruby. The Commission has decided to include this detailed account despite pending Texas criminal proceedings because the biography will aid evaluation of the conspiracy question, will serve the public interest given numerous rumors about Ruby, and will help convey his character and background; however, the appendix does not address legal issues from Ruby’s trial or his possible motive for shooting Oswald.
A Biography of Jack Ruby
The biography of Jack Ruby (born Jacob Rubenstein) is presented by the Commission to allow better evaluation of evidence regarding whether Ruby was involved in any conspiracy, to serve the public interest amid many rumors about him, and to provide sufficient material to convey his character and background, while necessarily limiting its scope so as not to interfere with pending Texas proceedings relating to Ruby’s trial or possible motive for shooting Oswald.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Jack Ruby, born Jacob Rubenstein, was the fifth of his parents’ eight living children, with conflicting records placing his 1911 birth on various dates; March 25, 1911, appears most frequently on his adult records and driver’s license. He had one older brother (Hyman) and three older sisters (Ann, Marion, and Eva), as well as two younger brothers (Sam and Earl) and a younger sister (Eileen), with at least one and possibly two other children dying in infancy. His father, Joseph Rubenstein, was born in 1871 in Sokolov near Warsaw (then Czarist Russia), entered the Russian artillery in 1893 where he learned carpentry and developed a drinking problem, married Fannie Turek Rutkowski in an arranged match, served in China, Korea, and Siberia before deserting around 1898, and emigrated via England and Canada to the United States in 1903. Joseph settled in Chicago, joined the carpenters union in 1904, worked fairly steadily until 1928, and was unemployed for the remaining 30 years of his life until his death in 1958; he also belonged to a purely social, nonpolitical group of fellow Sokolov immigrants.
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