Rabbi Pinchas Korf, 86, Beloved Chassidic Mentor and Role Model

NEW YORK (CHABAD.org/Yaakov Ort) – Rabbi Pinchas Korf, a beloved Chassidic mashpia (mentor) whose endearing smile, indefatigable energy and blazing inner fire influenced and inspired thousands of students and rabbinic peers for decades, passed away June 30. He was 86.

Affectionately known to all as “Reb Pinye,” Korf was born in Kharkov, Soviet Union, in 1935 to Rabbi Yehoshua and Chaya Rivkah Korf, devoted Chassidim of the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory. As a child, he studied in the underground yeshivahs established by the Sixth Rebbe during a time of oppressive communist persecution.

During the Second World War, the Korf family fled to the city of Samarkand, which had become a center for members of the Jewish underground who were engaged in preserving and spreading Jewish life and tradition in the former Soviet Union despite the risks to their lives.

After the defeat of the Nazis, the Soviet authorities permitted Polish citizens to return home, and many Chassidic families, including the Korfs, used forged papers to flee from the Soviet Union. They were eventually placed in a Displaced Persons camp in Poking, Germany, where young Pinye Korf became one of the first students in the Tomchei Tmimim yeshivah that was established in the camp. He later attended the Tomchei Tmimim yeshivah in Brunoy, France, where he studied under the famed Chassidic mentor, Reb Nissen Nemenov.

The Korf family immigrated to the United States in 1953 and settled in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, where Rabbi Yehoshua Korf was appointed mashpia at the central Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah at 770 Eastern Parkway. There the teenager quickly became known for his devotion to spreading the teachings and example of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and for his ability to grasp and communicate profound Chabad Chassidic concepts to people from all walks of Jewish life, from English-speaking university students to Yiddish-speaking Torah scholars.

After receiving rabbinic ordination and studying in the Tomchei Tmimim yeshivah in Montreal, Korf married his wife, Chaya, and the young couple moved to Newark, N.J., when the young rabbi was appointed mashpia of the Tomchei Tmimim yeshivah there, which eventually relocated to Morristown, N.J.

In 1970, Korf was appointed mashpia at the Oholei Torah yeshivah in Crown Heights, and became a central figure in the spiritual life of the neighborhood, giving classes to residents, tirelessly leading groups engaged in the Rebbe’s mitzvah campaigns, and counseling countless individuals, especially recent arrivals from the former Soviet Union.

In the decades to come, he became a steady source of inspiration to countless students and community residents, a model of Chassidic Torah study and prayer. In recent years, he was named mashpia of the central Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah at 770 Eastern Parkway, like his father before him. He continued to serve in that capacity well into his 80s until last spring, when he contracted the coronavirus, from which he never fully recovered.

Rabbi Pinchas Korf is survived by his wife Mrs. Chaya Korf, their children, Batsheva Gruzman of Migdal, Israel; Yosef Yitzchok Korf of Brooklyn; Chani Marinovsky of Kfar Daniel, Israel; Rochel Landa of Toronto; Rabbi Mendy Korf of Toronto; Nechama Dina Nemirovsky of Brooklyn; Rabbi Leibel Korf of Los Angeles; Rabbi Benche Korf of Miami Beach; Rabbi Pesachya Korf of Brooklyn; Rabbi Berel Korf of Manchester, England; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

He is also survived by his siblings Rabbi Avrohom Korf of Miami, and Mrs. Batsheva Shemtov of Oak Park, Mich. He was predeceased by a brother, Rabbi Gedaliah Korf.