Baruch Korff, Richard Nixon’s Rabbi

July 21 2015

Born in what is now Ukraine, Rabbi Baruch Korff, who died twenty years ago, spent most of his life in America. During World War II, he served as the director of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People, an organization dedicated to rescuing Jews from Nazi-controlled Europe. He also became a confidant of President Nixon, whom he defended to the bitter end. Robert Philpot writes:

Not for nothing had Nixon introduced Korff to Chicago’s mayor as “my rabbi” earlier that spring. For, during the dying months of his presidency, Korff had emerged as Nixon’s most full-throated supporter. The previous autumn he had launched the National Committee for Fairness to the Presidency, which was committed to reaffirming “our faith in God and country, in constitutional government, in the presidency, and in our beloved president.” Its full-page newspaper advertisements were no less effusive, charging that Nixon’s media enemies had “scandalized him, brutalized him, [and] savaged him day after day, night after night.” . . .

[U]nlike many of the Jews who voted to re-elect him in 1972—when Nixon captured the second-highest share of the traditionally Democratic Jewish vote in the previous 60 years—Korff seemed prepared to give the president a pass. After [Korff’s] death, his daughter said her father “felt a kinship to Nixon in no small part because of his aid to Israel.” That sentiment was justified. In October 1973, when Israel faced an existential threat, Nixon was consumed by Watergate. With the Soviets flying arms into Egypt and Syria, Nixon’s aides debated how they could aid their ally without antagonizing the Arab states who had already imposed an oil embargo. Nixon took charge and, with the command “do it now,” ordered the Pentagon to start resupplying Israel’s depleted forces.

Read more at Jewish Chronicle

More about: American Jewry, History & Ideas, Holocaust, Richard Nixon, Watergate

A Jewish Obligation to Vote

On October 3, 1984, Rabbi Moses Feinstein—a leading figure among American Orthodox Jews, whose halakhic opinions are obeyed and studied today—wrote a letter encouraging Jews to vote in the upcoming elections. Feinstein, a talmudist of the old school, was born in a shtetl in the vicinity of Minsk, then in the Russian empire, before elections were known in that country. He came to the U.S. in 1937, at the age of forty-one, to escape the ever-worsening persecution of devout Jews in the Soviet Union. That experience no doubt shaped his view of democracy. Herewith, the letter in full:

On reaching the shores of the United States, Jews found a safe haven. The rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights have allowed us the freedom to practice our religion without interference and to live in this republic in safety.

A fundamental principle of Judaism is hakaras hatov—recognizing benefits afforded us and giving expression to our appreciation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each Jewish citizen to participate in the democratic system which safeguards the freedoms we enjoy. The most fundamental responsibility incumbent on each individual is to register and to vote.

Therefore, I urge all members of the Jewish community to fulfill their obligations by registering as soon as possible and by voting. By this, we can express our appreciation and contribute to the continued security of our community.

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More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Democracy, Halakhah