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Thursday September 6, 2007

Wrestling with future is full-time job for new E. Bay federation president

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

Even when you factor in a troop of midget wrestlers or mountainous men with names like Mighty Mephisto or Mighty Igor interrupting his mother’s white-gloves PTA meeting, Rob Ruby grew up in a solidly Jewish home.

“I grew up in a place in Detroit where I was Jewish by default. My public high school was 75 percent Jewish. I don’t think there’s anything like that here,” said Ruby, whose foghorn-like vocal chords were put to good use as a ringside announcer for his father’s pro-wrestling league (hence the Mighty guests).

Ruby — whose upbringing was the subject of a 2003 j. cover story — doesn’t hope to deliver wrestling shenanigans to the next generation of Bay Area Jews. But the vestiges of Jewish life mean enough to him that he left his job as a successful lawyer a year ago largely to serve as a near full-time president of the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay.

“I and my family have been the beneficiaries of an enormous number of gifts made available by the Jewish community. Growing up, I had camps and AZA, I’ve had the opportunity to travel and my son had wonderful preschool experiences from which he went away with lifetime friends — as did my wife and I,” said the 58-year-old Piedmont resident.

“Frankly, I worry that if there are not more individuals who decide that these gifts need to be made available to the next generation, they could be jeopardized.”

Ruby, who took over the federation presidency earlier this summer, knows his work is cut out for him. He points out that the East Bay Jewish community is going through something of a heyday, with world-class Jewish scholarship at U.C. Berkeley, three day schools, a thriving Midrasha program, several synagogues in new homes and two JCCs.

Some estimate 120,000 Jews reside in the East Bay — and yet the hefty majority are not involved in the organized Jewish community. Ruby points out that the tens of thousands of Jews living in Contra Costa County are particularly underserved.

Unlike the Detroit community of Ruby’s childhood, in order to enjoy Jewish life in the Bay Area “you have to opt in. And we’re trying to make it easier for people to opt in.”

One of the ways to do that is an even heavier reliance on directed fundraising, in which donors choose where their dollars go. Ruby notes that his parents were fine with giving to a “community chest” model, as, to an extent, is his generation. But the generations that followed desire more control of their philanthropic dollars.

Ruby also pledged a strong commitment to Jewish communities overseas. Last year he met impoverished Odessa Jews who were provided food, health care and phone service by federation dollars, and was in Israel as the war in Lebanon broke out. His belief in the value of the federation system was buttressed as he personally witnessed the effort to ferry 12,000 northern Israeli children from war-zone bunkers into summer camps in central Israel.

Ruby’s wife, Eileen, is a past federation president. In the East Bay federation’s 60-year history, this is, amazingly, the fourth time both a husband and wife have served in the top job.

“We need more volunteers. We need more leaders. We need more donors,” he emphasizes.

“Things are going great in the East Bay, Jewishly, now, but we can’t be smug. We need to make sure there is another Jewish generation and a Jewish community for them.”

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