"The Gonif" as an archetype for Walter Ruby

"The Gonif" as an archetype for Walter Ruby

• Dec 21, 2020
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It should be acknowledged that we have, at this point, no proof that the Gonif actually existed or that he was in fact the son of the Kovno Rav. If the Rav indeed married as early as 1830, he could certainly have had a son who would have been around 20 at the time of the Crimean War. According to Zalman Alpert, if such a wayward son in fact existed, Rabbi Spektor would likely have preferred not to acknowledge his paternity in the respectable world of Russian Jewry.

Yet Stan Ruby was certain the son existed, having often heard about him from his own father Walter Rabinowitz Ruby, who may have seen the iconoclastic and entrepreneurial Gonif as a kind of role model. In any case, Walter’s knowledge of the Gonif’s existence appears to show that what may have been airbrushed out of the official account remained a vivid part of family lore.

So we are missing many of the basic facts, but the juxtaposition of the righteous father and wayward son, the tzaddik and the sinner, the sacred and the profane, is certainly compelling. There were various paths out of the constricted life of the shtetl, the world of the Pale during the 19th Century, and crime was clearly one of them.

The Gonif was a rebel against the tradition and faith his father represented and certainly not the last such figure in the annals of the Ruby family.