TOP-LEFT: Faithful couple Derreck Alexander and Jane Rubin, photographed by Derreck.

TOP-RIGHT: My parents, Harry Jay Rubin and Margaret Cohen Rubin, on their honeymoon.

Family First

My parents were politically liberal, but they also had strict family values and core values.

They instilled their values in their children.

My parents, Bud Rubin, a talented Clarinetist and Lawyer (Yale Law School 1953) and my mother, Peggy Cohen Rubin, MSW, a Social Worker and Political Organizer, and my Grandfather, Justice Herbert Cohen, who was the Pennsylvania House Majority Leader (D), PA Attorney General and a PA Supreme Court Justice, and my grandmother, Mildred Charlap Cohen, a great Painter — were progressive leaders in the civil rights arena — long before the 1960s.

My upbringing was multicultural.

My parents were close friends and political allies with York's Black Leaders, such as Roy and Delores Borom and Ray Crenshaw. They were members of our extended family and frequently at our home.

I attended York's rough inner city public schools.

My sisters and I were the only Jewish children in the entire York, PA City School System.