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The Kornsgolds: A Family of Rabbis
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
R ose and Morris Kornsgold didn’t
push their children to become
religious leaders.

Yet two of their kids, Jay and Helene,
are rabbis. And Jay’s son, Noam
Kornsgold, is also a rabbi.

For the Philadelphia family, Judaism is
deeper than an identity. It’s the religion
they practice, but it’s also the values
they live by, according to Rabbi Helene
the United States.

Rose and Morris Kornsgold both
survived the Holocaust and made it
to Philadelphia in the late 1940s and
early ’50s. Rose Kornsgold even ended
up in a 1949 Jewish Exponent picture
showing her fi rst day at a South Philly
elementary school.

Th e photo complemented an article
about 200 refugee children starting school
in the city. Aft er the Exponent repub-
lished the story in 2017 during its 130th
anniversary, Kornsgold’s granddaughter
an Orthodox congregation, Etz Chaim,
and then a traditional one in Adath Zion.

Th e parents sent their kids to Jewish day
schools like Solomon Schechter (now
Perelman Jewish Day School) and, for high
school, the Akiba Hebrew Academy (now
the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy).

Th e kids liked it. Th eir friends were
Jewish. Th ey were always attending syn-
agogue events and youth group events.

As they explained, it was just their lives.

“It surrounded us,” Helene Kornsgold
said. And as Rose Kornsgold explained, it
didn’t keep them from living normal
lives in other ways.

“Th ey went to ballgames. Th ey did all
that stuff ,” she said. “Just not on Fridays
and Saturdays.”
Yet for Jay Kornsgold and Helene
Kornsgold, rabbinical school was never
part of the plan.

Jay Kornsgold wanted to be mayor
of Philadelphia. But then one day his
See Kornsgolds, Page 31
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The Kornsgold family at Noam Kornsgold’s wedding
Photo by Soulmate Wedding Photography
Kornsgold, who serves Temple Israel in
Charlotte, North Carolina.

“In any decision-making, that was our
basis. Our Jewish values,” she said.

Helene Kornsgold is the director of edu-
cation at Temple Israel. Jay Kornsgold is in
his 28th year serving Beth El Synagogue
in East Windsor, New Jersey. And Noam
Kornsgold is the director of education and
programming for Camp Ramah in the
Berkshires in Wingdale, New York.

Laura Brandspiegel (married name)
is the only child of Rose and Morris
Kornsgold to do something else with her
life. But as a pediatrician, she’s doing OK,
especially by Jewish standards.

“We call her the black sheep,” Rose
Kornsgold joked.

Th e family’s rabbinical lineage is a
byproduct of their immigration to
spotted it and called her. Th at call led to
a May 2018 article about the matriarch’s
journey from Poland to Russia and back
to Poland aft er World War II.

Aft er the war and Kornsgold’s father’s
death, her mother boarded a ship to the
United States and never looked back.

Since Rose and Morris, who she met
in Philadelphia, lost most members of
their families, their religion was import-
ant to them. Th ey also wanted their
children to have a way to connect to
their identity.

“Th ey grew up with no grandparents,
no family or anything,” Rose Kornsgold
said. “We wanted them to be with stu-
dents that were like them.”
Th e fi rst-generation American family
kept kosher and observed Shabbat and
all the Jewish holidays. Th ey belonged to
E. Matthew Steinberg
Managing Director – Investments
Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.

165 Township Line Road
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(215) 576-3015
matthew.steinberg@opco.com Serving Investors in
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