Haverhill's Rabbi Ira Korinow to be recognized as NAACP Unsung Hero


By Susie Davidson
Special to the Advocate

Religious and community officials were among 150 attendees this past January at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Inn and Conference Center marking what would have been the 84th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Spiritual leaders at the annual breakfast, which also observed the 50th anniversary of King's famed “I Have a Dream” speech, included Bishop Stanley O. Choate, pastor of New England Pentecostal Ministries in Pelham, New Hampshire; The Rev. Barnest Patton II of Third Baptist Church in Lawrence; Rev. Roger A. Sawtelle of the New England Conference of the AME Church; and Rabbi Ira Korinow of Temple Emanu-El in Haverhill. At the breakfast, Korinow told the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune that Jews and blacks had both historically been subjected to prejudice, and that the Jewish community had always been active in social justice struggles for all.

Korinow's own efforts have just been recognized by the Merrimack Valley Chapter of the NAACP, which will honor him with their Unsung Hero Award on Nov. 2 at the Freedom Fund Awards Dinner at the UMass Lowell's Conference Center.

Like the Rabbis who historically stood with King, as well as at defining moments of the Civil Rights era, Korinow has long been a steady and an active presence, both at events that honor that groundbreaking movement and in his own initiatives. Those include a joint Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service he started 25 years ago between Emanu-El and the Calvary Baptist Church in Haverhill, which continues to be one of the most prominent MLK Day events in the area. Korinow is also the president of the Haverhill Civil Rights Commission, the inception of which he spearheaded. During his presidency of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, he traveled with Catholic and Protestant clergymen and community leaders to bring aid to burned churches in the South.

The Rabbi, a Newton native who received his bachelor's degree, Magna Cum Laude, in Religion from Boston University and a Master's in Hebrew Literature at the Rabbinic School of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, told the Advocate about the unnerving events that precipitated the formation of the Commission. "Two men who were members of the Ku Klux Klan came through Haverhill in 1990," he said. "One, a man named 'Bob,' kept his identity concealed, under full Klan garb that included at all times a white hood over his head." The community was understandably frightened, he explained, all the while simultaneously questioning if this "Bob" could possibly be one of their neighbors. "I was president of the Haverhill Clergy Association at the time, and I received a call that I will never forget," Korinow said. The call was made to the synagogue from a Hispanic man. "He said, 'I'm very scared. I know that they'll go after the blacks and Jews, and then I'm afraid they'll go after me and my family. Rabbi, what can you do about this?" When the call was completed, Korinow said, "I sat motionless in my study, wondering what I could do."


What he did was to institute a call to action. "I managed to put together a meeting of the members of the clergy, political leaders of Haverhill, Merrimac and Plaistow, New Hampshire, two adjacent towns where the two KKK members had also made appearances," he recalled. Among those present at the meeting were the mayor of Haverhill, members of the City Council, the town councilors of Merrimac and Plaistow, the chiefs of police and the superintendents of schools from the affected three communities, and key businessmen as well. "I had invited the Director of Civil Rights in the N.E. Office of the ADL to come and speak and direct us on what we should do," he said. "She told us that the KKK had a constitutional right to freedom of speech, but that we, the leaders of the community, also had an obligation to respond." An educator in attendance praised the gathering, and suggested forming a group to have in place, should any similar situations occur in the future.


That was the start of the Haverhill Civil Rights Commission, and Korinow was asked to be the Chair. Unfortunately, the group has been quite busy in the years since. Korinow recounted many incidents that the Commission has met over and responded to: "Acts of hatred have ranged from the trashing of Haverhill Stadium with anti-Hispanic messages spraypainted on its wall, to anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic sentiments spraypainted on the outside of Haverhill High School,” he said. The Commission has also called to task a member of the City Council overheard voicing anti-Hispanic slurs; reacted to death threats made against two followers of Wicca who sought permission from the city to hold a ceremony marking the Wiccan New Year at a city-owned park; and responded to vandalism with racist slurs spraypainted on the side of the Calvary Baptist Church; as well as to anti-Semitic flyers strewn over Main Street in front of Temple Emanu-El on Rosh Hashanah, the cutting of the electric cord lighting up the Chanukiah, and tomato sauce, evoking blood, splattered over the front of the synagogue. Various editorials in the Eagle-Tribune have lauded the work of the Commission.


Over 25 years ago, Korinow approached Reverend Gregory Thomas of the Calvary Baptist Church about instituting a joint service of celebration on the Friday evening prior to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday observance in January. "The service follows the Jewish liturgy of Shabbat evening, and each year I put together a pamphlet of five or six readings from the writings of King, which are read between some of the prayers of the Shabbat liturgy," he said. "Reverend Thomas usually gives a spirited, fire and brimstone style sermon, and the various choirs of the church have sung some Gospel tunes." When Mindy Harris, Emanu-El's cantorial soloist, organizes a volunteer synagogue choir, the two choirs sing together during the service. Korinow said that attendance has sometimes been as high as 400. "The President of the Merrimack Valley Branch of the NAACP usually brings greetings that evening, as does the Mayor of Haverhill. In other words, it has become a big event in Haverhill, of which I am very proud."


Proud, but humbled, as he said he was when he learned that he was to receive this award. He added that his commitment to civil rights is also the reason behind his active, indeed onsite, participation in the Soviet Jewry Movement during the 1980s. "I brought material aid to refuseniks during the height of the Cold War," he recalled. He served on the Executive Board of Action for Soviet Jewry in Waltham, and was also co-chairman of the Rabbinic Action Committee of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews in Washington when he represented the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry at a meeting with President Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985. The depth of his conviction is further made apparent in his arrest, six months later, while protesting in front of the Soviet Embassy over the denial of visas to Soviet Jews who wished to emigrate from the USSR.

During a 1994 peace mission with a group of rabbis, Korinow met with political, educational and business leaders in Israel, Jordan and Egypt. He is a member of the National Rabbinic Cabinet of the United Jewish Communities, an organization that ensures the humanitarian needs of global populations. In 2007, 2007, Rabbi Korinow participated in a JFNA special mission to New Orleans, where he helped rebuild a home damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  He is on the board of Friends Forever of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a group that brings Catholic and Protestant teens from Northern Ireland and Jewish and Arab teens from Israel to the Seacoast area as well as to New Orleans and Bloomington, Ill. for a program that fosters mutual trust and respect. As part of Friends Forever, Korinow also met with Arab Rotarians from Nazareth and the Arab village of Ein Mahil, which sponsors groups of Israeli Jewish and Arab teens.

He is civically engaged as well. During his tenure as President, the Haverhill Rotary Club raised over $20,000 in aid to the victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El since 1981, Korinow and his wife Gail live in Haverhill. The couple has three sons: Morry and his wife, Alicia, who live in Lawrence; Doron and his wife, Elana Fein, who live in Brighton; and Raanan, who lives in New York City. They have one granddaughter, three-year-old Orly Sadie Fein Korinow.

The 2013 theme of the January breakfast was “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That goes for synagogues, churches, and other sites of prayer and community. And Korinow has seen to it that these houses are undivided, and stand together.

Rabbi Korinow