San Francisco is obsessed with the legal troubles of suspended sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. One might have to go back to 1906 to find another city hall legal tangle as widely publicized –— that of Abraham “Abe” Ruef (1864-1936), the political boss behind the selection of violinist (and political neophyte) Eugene Schmitz as mayor in 1902.
Born into a prosperous San Francisco family of European origin, Ruef was a wunderkind who graduated from U.C. Berkeley at 18 with a degree in classics. His zeal for politics led him to found the Union Labor Party, which from 1902 to 1907 controlled the city through Mayor Schmitz.
In 1906 he was convicted of graft; city supervisors acknowledged in court the money they had received from Ruef “in connection with the Home Telephone, overhead trolley, prize fight monopoly, and gas rates deals.” Among the ironies of this straight-A Jewish student going to the dark side: The trial was held in the sanctuary of Congregation Sherith Israel, which after the earthquake became the city courthouse. In 1936, Ruef died penniless and half-forgotten.
This column is provided to j. by Daniel Schifrin,writer-in-residence at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, where stories of local Jewish life are explored in “California Dreaming: Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present.”