In the days after a condo building collapsed near his synagogue in 2021, Rabbi Sholom Lipskar became even more of a local celebrity than he was already.
The head of The Shul, one of the largest congregations affiliated with the Chabad Hasidic movement of Judaism, Lipskar turned his synagogue into a hub for first responders and families of the missing. He also handed out cards featuring Psalm 23 to the search-and-rescue teams tasked with extracting what would ultimately be 98 bodies from the rubble, including those of members of his community.
“Sometimes from tragedy, from darkness, you can bring out a sense of humanness and decency,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time. “The nations of the world, their objective is to create a civilization, a moral, ethical civilization. It’s the objective of the Jew to infuse that civilization with holiness, with divinity, with purpose, meaning.”
It was a mission that, according to his many acolytes, Lipskar carried through his life and long career in Bal Harbour, Florida, where under his stewardship The Shul transformed from a tiny congregation operating amid steep local antisemitism to a thriving synagogue at the heart of one of the United States’ fastest-growing Orthodox communities.
Lipskar died Saturday at 78, following a period of declining health.
“Rabbi Lipskar’s legacy is one of towering leadership, boundless heart, and an unwavering commitment to the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s shlichus,” Yeshiva World News said in a eulogy on Sunday. “He was a man of depth, action, and boundless energy — equally at home giving a fiery derasha [sermon], comforting a prisoner, or inspiring a secular businessman to put on tefillin.”
A crown turned out in Bal Harbour to send Lipskar’s body to New York City, where his funeral procession passed the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn before heading to Montefiore Cemetery, the Queens gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Chabad movement’s last leader.
It was Schneerson who selected Lipskar and his wife Chani to open a congregation in Bal Harbour in 1982. Born in the Soviet Union in 1946 and raised in Canada, Lipskar was already a leader within the Chabad movement, having grown Chabad schools and yeshivas in South Florida since the 1960s.
But Bal Harbour posed a formidable challenge. Housing deeds in the town specifically barred homes from being sold to Jews, and the ritzy Bal Harbour Club would only begin allowing Jewish members at the end of the year, under pressure from a discrimination lawsuit.
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, embraces Shul of Bal Harbour’s rabbi, Shlomo Lipskar, during an event at which the synagogue was honoring Milei. (Shul of Bal Harbour Instagram; Milei Instagram)
Lipskar had to fight the town to allow him to erect a public Hanukkah menorah, a hallmark of Chabad outreach in the communities where it operates. He also had to find a way to divide his time between his growing congregation and the Aleph Institute, the nonprofit focused on serving incarcerated Jews he founded. For his supporters, it was clear how he managed to juggle it all.
“He doesn’t do anything unless, like he says, it’s ‘over the top,’” Gabe Groisman, then the mayor of Bal Harbour, said about Lipskar in 2021. “Really what it means is, he’s always 100% invested in the person that’s in front of him.”
The Shul, Aleph and the Jewish community in Bal Harbour have all flourished over the decades since Lipskar’s arrival. The synagogue grew so much that it needed to expand dramatically, in a renovation that was dedicated last year. It has also played host to dignitaries such as Florida lawmakers — including then-Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed two bills Lipskar had backed in the building just before the Surfside collapse — and, recently, Argentine President Javier Milei.
“We were honored to call him a friend,” Gov. Rick Scott tweeted upon Lipskar’s death. “He was a guiding light during the Surfside tragedy and will always be remembered for his kind spirit.”
In addition to his wife, Lipskar is survived by his children, daughter Devorah Leah Andrusier and son Zalman, who works at The Shul; and his grandchildren.
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