November 18th, 2026, 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm
As if things couldn’t get any stranger regarding history’s treatment of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and the killing—on live TV—two days later of presumed-assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Jewish nightclub owner Jack Ruby, a new entry in conspiracy media enters the scene in the form of the soon-to-be-released feature film, November 1963.
This big-screen extravaganza is directed by Roland Joffe (famous for The Killing Fields) and stars John Travolta and Mandy Patinkin. The very-Jewish-identified Ruby, portrayed by Trainspotting’s Robert Carlyle, plays a major role in this “based-on-a-true story” tale of the Mob’s supposed role in the murders of the president and his killer. The film’s screenplay is written by Mob-kingpin Sam Giancana’s nephew, Nicholas Celozzi, who claims his uncle told him the real story behind the two assassinations.
Following up on his 2023 JSC presentation about Ruby (one of our most popular events), Danny Fingeroth—author of Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin—returns to discuss the issues brought up by the new movie, and many other Ruby-related topics. Danny is joined by JFK-assassination historian and national security lawyer Mark S. Zaid. Together, they discuss how the upcoming film is likely to handle Ruby’s role in assassination history, and compare it to other media treatments of Ruby, especially the treatment (or lack thereof) of Ruby’s Jewish background and obsessions.
Danny Fingeroth is an accomplished biographer and cultural historian, specializing in history at the intersection of Jewish and American cultures. Fingeroth made his mark as a cultural observer with books including Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His acclaimed 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous Life, looks at this innovative Jewish-American figure—the co-creator of Marvel Comics—in the context of the overall culture. Now, with Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin, Fingeroth takes us through Ruby’s bizarre life of extreme behavior leading up to and beyond that fateful weekend in Dallas.
Mark S. Zaid is a Washington, D.C. national security lawyer who has spent his entire 30+ year career advocating for greater government transparency, including concerning the JFK assassination. He has handled numerous lawsuits involving the case and has represented several of JFK’s Secret Service Agents, the President’s mistress Judith Exner, the State Department diplomat who dealt with Lee Harvey Oswald in Moscow, and numerous assassination authors. He also testified multiple times before the Assassination Records Review Board and has written and lectured on the assassination for decades.
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