Julian Rubinstein

Julian Rubinstein is an American journalist, documentary filmmaker and educator. He is best known for his documentary film and journalism work. Aside from magazine work in the New Yorker, New York Times, Rolling Stone and others, he has written two non-fiction books, ''Ballad of the Whiskey Robber,'' which chronicles the life of one of the world's most popular living folk heroes and ''The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood'', a multi-generational story of activism and gang violence in a gentrifying northeast Denver community. While reporting ''The Holly'', he began directing and producing THE HOLLY, a feature-length documentary that captures significant problems in a federal anti-gang effort and the targeted takedown of an activist.

Early life

Rubinstein was born in 1968 in the Bronx. He is the son of David Rubinstein, a psychiatrist and medical director, and Diane Rubinstein, an aerospace engineer. The family moved to Denver from New York City in 1970. His father was diagnosed with cancer at age 49 and became known posthumously for his work counseling residents at Hospice of Metro Denver who didn't know he too was dying. His mother worked much of her career on government contracts, including missile defense.

Rubinstein attended Cherry Creek High School.

Career

Rubinstein began his career as an agate clerk in the ''Washington Post'' Sports section, and wrote for the Sports and Style section, where he did music reviews and features. In 1994, he was hired as a reporter at ''Sports Illustrated'', where he worked for four years, covering tennis, NFL, NBA and extreme sports. In 1996, he worked with senior writer Gary Smith on "Crime and Punishment: The Saga of Richie Parker, which won the 1997 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.

Rubinstein became a freelance journalist. His story, "They Call It Suicide", published in ''Rolling Stone'' in 2000, was reported over several weeks in Mato Grosso do Sul in which he gained the trust of a Guarani Indian tribe fleeing the reservation in fear of its chief.

Rubinstein wrote what a lengthy profile of tennis player John McEnroe. The unabridged version of the profile appeared on the literary sports journalism site, SportsJones.com and espn.com, and an abridged version of the story was published in ''The New York Times Magazine'' in 2000. Rubinstein also chronicled the Hells Angels war with a rival biker gang, the Rock Machine, in Canada, and profiled the Hasidic international ecstasy kingpin, Jacob "Cookie" Orgad, a story selected for Best American Crime Writing.

In 2004, Rubinstein published his first non-fiction book ''Ballad of the Whiskey Robber'', about the Hungarian bank robber and folk hero Attila Ambrus. The book was the winner of Borders' 2005 "Original Voices" Non-fiction Book of the Year and was a finalist for the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime book and the 2005 Anthony Award for best Non-fiction book.

In 2013, Rubinstein's story "Operation Easter" appeared in ''The New Yorker'' for which Rubinstein gained access to illegal egg collectors in the U.K. The story was named one of the "5 Most Entertaining Stories of the Year" by Longreads, and was listed as a Notable story of the Year by Best American Science and Nature Writing. In 2006, he wrote about his relationship with his father, David Rubinstein, in ''5280

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