 An adherent to Haredi Judaism of the Lubavitcher hasidic movement, Rubashkin was born in the late-1920s in the Russian town Nevel in the former Soviet Union He was the son of Getzel Rubashkin and Rosa Lubavicher Hasidim, who raised their two sons and daughters as observant Jews in spite of the anti-religious repression in the Soviet Union.When the Germans occupied Nevel in July 1941, the Rubashkin family fled east, eventually reaching the Uzbek city of Samarkand, where he married Rivka Chazanov of the Chein family of Nevel.After the war, the Rubashkin family left the Soviet Union via Lemberg and spent time in Austria, before they settled in Paris in 1947.