Samuel Israel Korff, the first of four children of Grand Rabbi Jacob Korff and Gittel Goldman, was born in 1911 in Novograd-Volynsk, Russia (called Zvil by its Jewish population). Known to the family as Yitzchok for his middle name (Israel in English), Samuel witnessed the murder of his mother during a pogrom when he was eight years old.
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Samuel Korff (far right) with his father Jacob and younger brother Baruch |
Samuel Korff and His
Siblings
Following tradition, Jacob Korff married his dead wife's sister, Yochoved (Etta)
Goldman, but Samuel and the other children of Gittel never quite accepted Etta
as their new mother. They addressed her as "Auntie," not "mother." Etta bore
Jacob five more children, two of them born in Europe, before the family
immigrated to the Unite States. By the time the family settled in their new
home in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1926, Samuel was 15 years old.
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Samuel Korff (back far-right) with his stepmother Etta (center) and siblings (clockwise from Samuel) Adele, Betty, Max, Nathan, and Baruch |
Family dynamics are a complicated affair in any family with a stepparent but even more so in an immigrant family. Samuel's son Joseph Korff lent his perspective to the forces that shaped the relationships between Samuel Korff and his siblings:
“My father worshipped his father. I don't know whether it was due to a lack of a mother figure. There was sibling rivalry in a chaotic environment. The first four [Gittel's children] had been more groomed for the position of rabbi and rebbitzen.[1] None of the other children really followed in this path. Perhaps, they were rebelling in their youth. I don't think my grandfather had strong control over them. They were raised in an American environment as opposed to a European one. There was greater freedom of action. The eldest son in the second group [Max Korff] joined the Navy or was drafted and that brought broadening influences.
"My father was groomed to be the heir and given responsibility. He was supposed to take care of all of his parents' issues and all of his siblings' issues—the typical oldest child syndrome. He dealt with doctors, lawyers, and was the peacemaker. My father was my grandfather's everything. He was viewed by the others as a bit of a father figure without the actual authority of one. So there was tension. Later, after the death of his father-in-law, my father became the patriarch of my mother's immediate family, too.”
Raised to follow in his father's footsteps, Samuel left Dorchester for New York City to study for the rabbinate. He graduated from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva, a branch of Yeshiva University, in June 1933, and was ordained with high honors. A year later, he married Nesha (Anna) Twersky, the daughter of Rabbi Nachum and Malcha Twersky.
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Samuel Korff and Nesha Twersky |
Nesha Twersky Korff recalled her courtship with Samuel Korff:
“My husband used to go to the yeshiva not far
from where we lived. He used to come to us for Shabbos. I don't know why he
liked me. So one day, he said Nesha, I want you to marry me. So I said
to myself, If you like him... So we saw each for two years. He was a year
younger than me.[2]
If I didn't like him, I wouldn't
have married him. He was honest, sincere. He was trustworthy, good-natured. We
married on June 19, 1934, in Brooklyn.”
