Cherry on the Top: The Ethical Will and Memoirs of Ruby Ray Karzen

Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 2:00 PM
Help Session 1:30 PM
Holocaust Memorial Center

This is a memoir of a very interesting life. The author is a feisty, larger-than-life lady, well-known in Jerusalem and also in various American cities and towns, especially Chicago, where she was a Rebbetzin, supporting her equally well-known husband, Rabbi Jay Karzen.

Her life began in New York on May 9th, 1938. Her parents Isidore Ray and Minnie Gartner Ray were both born and married in Poland, and her memoir begins in a Polish town called Staszow where the Raja family (now Ray) were lumber and leather merchants. There is a very detailed family tree as we are introduced to her many forebears, and throughout the book we meet many more relatives as her memoir covers almost 70 years. The title Cherry on the Top stems from her belief that all of life’s activities flow from faith in the Almighty. Comparing life to an ice-cream sundae, she maintains that it rises higher and higher with acts of goodness and charity. The cherry on top represents the achievement of becoming a “mentsch” (an honorable person).

Cherry on the Top was written as a memoir and an ethical will for their children and descendants. If you like Jewish Geography, you will come across many familiar names. The book is not – nor does it purport to be – a great work of literature. But if you would enjoy sitting down for a few hours with an accomplished, entertaining lady and sharing her life experiences, this memoir will give you a lot of pleasure.

Ruby served for almost a decade as President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI). An inspirational speaker, she is a constant source of support for the Anglo community in Israel, always ready to serve. She is an avid writer; many of her articles, spanning topics on Israel and Interior Design, have been published in magazines and newspapers. She and her husband, Rabbi Jay Karzen, have lived in Jerusalem since their Aliyah in 1985. All of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are passionate religious Zionists and live in Israel.