Jaari's parents were Samuel and Lena Jankeloff, and the family – originally from Russia – moved to
Helsinki in the 1860s. The Jankeloff family maintained clothing shops in
Kamppi and in Annankatu, in central Helsinki. As well as Ruben the Jankeloff family had three other sons: Sender, David, and Fabian (known as Fajo). Sender later emigrated to the United States. During the
First World War the family moved to
Copenhagen, but they returned in the 1920s to
Finland. Ruben Jaari trained as an electrical engineer in France and Germany, changing his surname to Jaari in the 1930s. He founded a store, named Kappa, in 1933 and sold in Vuorikatu with his brother Fajo women's jackets. Fajo was later to found his own business. In 1939 Jaari married Irene Friedländer, a
Latvian Jew whose parents later were murdered in the
Holocaust. Ruben and Irene had three children: Rea (b. 1940), who moved to England, married
James Reason and works as a psychologist; Ray (1943–1991), who died in a car accident; and Ralph (b. 1949), who today works in the construction trade in
Tallinn. Pukeva went bankrupt during the
Recession of the 1990s, partly due to the construction of
Kaisaniemi metro station. Jaari died in 1991, and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Helsinki. ==References==