Philanthropy as a Force for Inclusion

Jay Ruderman (’93) makes a global impact on disability rights and educating Israeli leaders about the American Jewish community.

Jay Ruderman (’93) was raised on the North Shore of Boston in a family that believed privilege and social responsibility were closely tied. As the head of the Ruderman Family Foundation, Ruderman employs his passion for public service to support the millions of people with disabilities in the United States, Israel, and around the world. His focus is their continuing struggle for civil rights and inclusion.

After graduating with honors from Brandeis University with a dual degree in politics and African studies, Ruderman began his work in the public sector on the campaign for a congressional candidate and then as the campaign manager for the candidate who would become the mayor of Salem, MA. While he enjoyed success in his home area, Ruderman wanted to do more and be more, so he decided to go back to school.

“I felt that a law degree would provide me with what I needed to succeed in public service,” Ruderman explains. When asked what led him to BU Law in particular, Ruderman notes that having grown up in the area, he wanted to pursue his studies while also serving his home community.

“It was important to me to stay in Boston,” he says, noting that BU Law had (and still has) “an excellent reputation, not just locally but nationally, so it allowed me to stay in the area while attending a nationally recognized law school.”

When he joined BU Law in 1990, Ruderman was most interested in constitutional law and public policy. Thanks to BU Law’s Criminal Law Clinic, he eventually turned his mind more toward criminal law and worked in the Essex County District Attorney’s Office in Salem after graduating in 1993. “That introduced me to a whole area of public service that I had not been exposed to,” Ruderman recalls. “I saw the benefits of helping people who were being victimized obtain justice.”

While his efforts benefitted his hometown and much of the Commonwealth, Ruderman also dedicated a great deal of his time and energy to Israel. “I have always had a strong connection to the country and spent a lot of time there,” he explains. After some time in the DA’s office, he moved to Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces as a liaison between the IDF and the Jewish Diaspora.

“The Second Intifada was happening and Israel was going through a very difficult time,” he explains. “There was a major bombing almost every week.” He also became more involved in policy work as part of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on whose behalf he spoke to Americans about the political and security situation in Israel.

When asked how he came to run the Foundation, Ruderman admits that he originally saw philanthropy as “a passive activity of supporting causes,” but soon came to understand that he “could be actively involved in changing the priorities of the community,” whether at home or abroad.

The Foundation’s two main goals are ensuring that people with disabilities are included in society, and educating Israeli leaders about the American Jewish community. While these topics may seem divergent, Ruderman has used the training he received at BU Law to help steer them together. The Foundation provides accessibility resources and job-skills training for people with disabilities, and advocates more generally for the Jewish community, both at home and abroad. Ruderman has worked to unite others involved in similar efforts as well.

“I was…able to take my experience in law and politics to help my family understand how we could use this vehicle to have a much greater impact—even a global impact—on an issue,” he suggests, adding that his family’s foundation has, in many ways, filled a leadership “vacuum” on these important causes. They originally began their mission of inclusion out of a value of fairness, but they were pulled into the community even more when Ruderman’s nephew was diagnosed with Autism.

In a further effort to lead and unite people with disabilities and the Jewish community, the Foundation is hosting an international event in November that will invite and encourage anyone who cares about the civil rights of people with disabilities to come to Boston to discuss ideas and create best practices.

Speaking of the immense number of people with disabilities (which, at 20 percent of the US population, is the largest minority in the nation), Ruderman observes that “in the past, people were institutionalized and then segregated.” He suggests “we are just now waking up to the idea that people with disabilities have the right to be included in the community, so it is important to realize that they are people first.”

Just as he is loath to be defined by others according to any one aspect of his life, Ruderman is stringently opposed to defining people by whatever term others may choose to use when discussing or discriminating against them.

“We should not define people by their disability,” he urges. “They are people first.”

Reported by Matt Robinson (GRS’10)