Ruby Dordek Kaufman

Just three months shy of her 98th birthday, Ruby Dordek Kaufman died in the early morning of Tuesday, September 15, 2026, surrounded by her daughters, at the Health Care Center of Friendship Village Tempe, Arizona.

Ruby was born in Chicago to immigrant parents from Eastern Europe. In 1950, she married Irving Kaufman, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Irving had come to the United States from Germany with a small group of teenaged Jewish refugees in 1938. Like her parents, Ruby explained on her 90th birthday, “Irv survived with the assistance and support of loving family members, worked hard and moved into adulthood with positive idealistic goals.”

Ruby received a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago in 1951 and then gave birth to the first two of the couple’s three daughters. Once Irv completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, the family moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in the aerospace industry and daughter number three was born. In 1964, Irv was invited to join the Engineering Department at Arizona State University, but the young couple decided to defer the offer for one year to accept a Fulbright grant to Florence, Italy, where Irv worked at the University of Florence and Ruby helped her three girls navigate the challenges of attending school in a country where they didn’t speak the language.

After returning to the United States, the Kaufmans moved to Tempe and Irv began his career as an ASU professor. Ruby volunteered in the schools and with a variety of service and arts organizations, including the Head Start program in Phoenix, the Girl Scouts, Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital, and the ASU Art Museum.

Ruby returned to school and received her Master’s in Social Work from ASU in 1973. With her new degree in hand, Ruby accompanied Irv to Auckland, New Zealand, where he was a visiting professor and she worked as a psychiatric social worker at Auckland Public Hospital. Later, Ruby worked as a Marriage and Family Counselor for Family Services in Tempe.

In 1978, the couple sought new adventures with another sabbatical in Europe. While Irv worked for the U.S. Office of Naval Research in London, Ruby fell in love with the field of antiquarian books. After returning to Arizona, she became the “Fairy Godmother of Book Lovers.” In the days before the Internet, Ruby helped customers all over the country find out-of-print books, especially those they had treasured and lost, and wanted to enjoy again. She also created a personal collection of children’s books.

Ruby credited the “kindness of strangers” for making her travel experiences so worthwhile. She and Irv extended the same generosity to others. In both Los Angeles and Tempe, they joined organizations that placed international students with local families, enabling them to host individuals and groups of students from Europe, Africa, and Asia for days at a time. They also welcomed Irv’s two teenaged nieces from Israel for a year each so they could experience life with family in the United States and learn English.

Ruby continued her lifetime of service after she and Irv moved to Friendship Village in 1998. Over the years, she organized weekly dinners for other Jewish residents at Friendship Village, worked with the Village staff to offer annual Passover Seders and Hanukkah parties, served as a concerned friend for other residents, participated in a pen pal program matching residents with local elementary school students, and worked on a variety of committees where she shared her lively sense of humor.

Predeceased by her husband, Ruby is survived by her daughters Eve (Nick) Nichols, Sharon (Timothy) Kaufman-Osborn and Julie Kaufman (Beth Wright); six grandchildren: Matthew (Katrina) Nichols and Beth Nichols; Jacob Kaufman-Osborn (Allison Barrett) and Tobin Kaufman-Osborn (Elizabeth Newman); Micah Kaufman Wright (Minjee Kasckow) and Käthe Wright Kaufman; seven great grandchildren; and her siblings Arthur (Sally) Dordek and Sylvia (the late Lee) Miller. A celebration of Ruby’s life will take place at Friendship Village later this year. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ballet Arizona, Hospice of the Valley in Phoenix, or a charity of your choice.