Posted on July 31, 2012
The Ruby Family
The year was 1990 and Richard and Deanne Ruby were looking for a temple to join as their oldest child was now ready for kindergarten. Some time before that, the couple had attended a program led by Rabbi Michael Mayersohn, then of Temple Ner Tamid in Downey, called “Creating Jewish Memories” which they enjoyed very much. When they had learned that he became Rabbi of Temple Beth David, they decided to join and for the last twenty two years, it’s hard to know who has benefited more from this relationship — the temple, for gaining the many talents of these individuals through their valuable contributions, or the family itself, for the many wonderful experiences they’ve had over the years celebrating life cycle events and for the many great relationships they’ve formed through the people they’ve met.
Richard was born in Chicago, IL. and at the age of ten his family moved to Southern California. He attended Millikan High School and graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in History. His father was a franchisee owner of a McDonalds restaurant and after gaining some experience in the business under his father, Richard decided to go into the business for himself. He is now the franchisee owner of eleven McDonalds restaurants located throughout the Southern California area.
As If becoming a franchisee owner wasn’t enough, the very first person he happened to hire turned out to eventually become his wife, and since then, he and Deanne have been creating a beautiful family raising two sons and two daughters. All the children had their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and confirmations at the temple and their eldest son was recently married.
In 1996, just six years after joining, Richard became president of the temple and served for four years. He remembers those days very fondly for the many diverse and rewarding relationships he made through the people he met and for the great honor of being selected president. Under his leadership, the temple embarked on a remodeling campaign where everything (but the kitchen) was remodeled. Richard also was responsible for creating Megillah Online — a system designed to replace the phone tree which was used to inform temple members of timely news. It eventually was used also to send out the monthly temple newsletter The Megillah!
Besides serving as president, Richard has also been Vice President of Ways and Means, Vice President of Finance, Publicity Trustee, Chair of several auctions, and has served on several committees, and is currently a member of The Lasting Legacy Committee and a member of brotherhood. His wife Deanne was editor of The Megillah! for several years, is a member of sisterhood, and was the recipient of Sisterhood’s Woman of Valor award.
Of Richard’s many interests, music is his passion, particularly music from the Rock ‘N Roll era. “Listening to music, reading about it, studying the history of Rock ‘N’ Roll music has always been important to me,” says Richard. He’ll often play a game with his friends….name your top five guitarists or who are your top five women rockers, etc.
If there ever was a proponent of the family road trip it is Richard. The family has taken many road trips and he, his wife, and youngest son, can say that they’ve been to all fifty states. One such trip was 6,800 miles long and one trip also included three weeks in the UK. “It’s had a huge and profound effect on my children and us,” says Richard. “You learn what it requires to keep a family of 6 people on the road for three weeks at a time in terms of what you learn about getting along with each other.”
We are so glad at TBD that one of the road trips the Ruby’s decided to take was the road that brought them to Temple Beth David over the years.♦