Mr. Ruby. Well, he was pretty well known in Chicago. He always was a good athlete, a good ballplayer. He was a very great swimmer, and he was very close to Barney Ross, so I would say—and he had many friends, so he was pretty well liked, and maybe some people would get the impression that he was a big shot but actually I don’t think he ever went out of the way to try to show people he was a big shot.
However, maybe I didn’t notice it because I am his brother. And he was my older brother, and so maybe I just didn’t notice it.
Mr. Griffin. I wonder if you can explain what seems to be on the one hand signs of his obsessions about being a Jew, such as you pointed out as fighting the Bundists and things like that, and on the other hand, what appears to be a lack of regular devotion to going to church services every week and keeping the religious home, and so forth?
Mr. Ruby. Well, the reason for that is I am more or less the same way as I explained before because in the breaking up of our home we were drawn away from this life, you see. I was living with—on a farm—I was living with gentile people and there wasn’t any synagogue there to go to, and so we drifted away from the services. And because before that we used to go to the Hebrew school, before our home was broken up, we all went to Hebrew school.
Mr. Griffin. Did you learn Hebrew?
Mr. Ruby. Oh, sure. Jack and—we went only until our home was broken up.
Mr. Griffin. When you were living in your home, did your parents keep a kosher home?
Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; definitely.
Mr. Griffin. It was a kosher home?
Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; definitely. Oh, sure.