Eugene “Gene” Joseph Ribakoff (1926-2010), grandson of a Russian immigrant, was born January 7, 1926, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Jacob “Jack” and Bertha “Betty” Ribakoff. Gene’s father built a Brooklyn scrap iron company by the age of twenty. From this model of self-reliance, Gene assumed leadership roles throughout his life.
Gene graduated from today’s Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he met Corinne “Corky” Hope Ascherman. They married in 1946 and had two children, Charles K. and Betsy Ann. Both Gene and Corky were active in civic and Jewish affairs in Worcester and later in Boston and Palm Beach. He was president of the Jewish Federation of Worcester, and an active board member of the Boston Museum of Science and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.
With Leo Malboeuf, Gene bought the Harr family car dealerships in 1948 and started AMI Leasing in 1952, which Ford Motor Credit Company bought in 1998. For fifty-five years, Gene was also chairman of Automotive Management Inc. , a Worcester-based corporation that operated car and truck dealerships. When he moved to Palm Beach year-round, Gene sold the Harr group to his son Charles, but he remained active in the business until 2001.
Gene joined the board of the Palm Beach Community Chestónow the Town of Palm Beach United Wayóin 1985 and served an unprecedented three terms as chairman of the board from 1996-99. Under his leadership, the agency achieved the highest per capita giving in the nation. Fellow past president Sidney Kohl observed, “His overriding personal goal was always focused on those who were least able to help themselves. ”
After Corky died in 1998, he founded the Corky Ribakoff Women’s Clinic in Dnepropetrovsk, the Ukraine, a project of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. A trustee of Brandeis University, in 2004 he created the Ribakoff Fellowship in Jewish Communal Service for students of the Hornstein Program. At Massachusetts General Hospital from 2004-2008, the Ribakoff Fellowship Program in Genitourinary Oncology allowed physicians from underserved countries to conduct research with specialists at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. Gene was “part of that special generation,” said his grandson Benjamin Gordon, “who succeeded with hard work and determination, took wonderful care of their families, and loved giving back some of their good fortune to improve the lives of others. ”
From 1999 to 2001, Gene was president of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, where he created the Corky Ribakoff Leadership Institute. For two years, forty members learned from Jewish and other leaders worldwide, and traveled to Israel and Russia. Due in part to this gift, Gene received the Federation’s highest honor, the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Community Citizen Award. The president/CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America called Gene “legendary, as a visionary and philanthropist. ” Under his leadership, the Palm Beach federation undertook a partnership with the City of St. Petersburg, Russia, to help its Jewish community.
Gene spread his work worldwide, meeting with princes, presidents, and the Pope. Colleague Phil Whitacre called him “the quintessential gentleman. ” From 2000 to 2008, Gene served as chairman and president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the largest Jewish humanitarian aid organization in the world. He often called his position “the best job in the Jewish world. ” While he was passionately involved in the full scope of JDC services worldwide, Gene chaired its Eastern Europe and Israel committees, and the Trans-Migrant Program, overseeing the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews. At the time of his death, Gene was deputy president of World ORT, which supports schools in sixty-three nations, and was a member of its “1880 Society” for elite international donors.
In 2001 Gene married Stephanie Weintraub, an active supporter of charitable organizations in New York and the Palm Beaches. For the first year of their marriage, they never spent more than two weeks in any one place as they traveled the world for the JDC.
He died April 9, 2010, at the age of 84, and is buried in Worcester. Gene had seven grandchildren (Benjamin, Deborah, Jack, Melanie, Corky, Nicki, and Lauren) and three great-grandchildren (Charles, Mia, and Noah), on whom his values “are forever imprinted,” said grandson Ben Gordon. He set up charitable foundations for each grandchild and deposited a gift on each of their birthdays, said Ben, “with simple instructions: Find a good cause!”