Rabbi Sholom Lipskar OBM

With profound sadness, we regret to inform you of the passing of Rabbi Sholom Dovber Lipskar A”H

Rabbi Sholom Dovber Lipskar, esteemed Shliach, founding director of the Aleph Institute, and visionary leader of The Shul of Bal Harbour, Florida, passed away on Shabbos, 5 Iyar 5785.

He was 77.

Rabbi Sholom Dovber Lipskar was born in 1946 in Tashkent, in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. As an infant, he was smuggled across the Soviet border with his family and taken to a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Germany. In the early 1950s, the Lipskar family immigrated to North America, eventually settling in Ontario, Canada.

Rabbi Lipskar received his rabbinic ordination (smicha) in 1968 from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. Following his marriage to Chani, the Rebbe appointed the young couple as Shluchim to Miami Beach, Florida. There, Rabbi Lipskar began his lifelong commitment to Jewish education and community leadership, serving as principal of the Landow Yeshiva School’s elementary division and later founding the Yeshiva Gedolah, where he oversaw educational programs from elementary through high school.

In 1981, he founded The Shul of Bal Harbour in Surfside, Florida, building it into a thriving hub of Jewish life and spiritual growth. That same year, he established the Aleph Institute, a pioneering national nonprofit organization that provides educational, emotional, and religious support to incarcerated individuals, military personnel, and their families.

Rabbi Lipskar also served as the official chaplain endorser to the U.S. Department of Defense and was instrumental in creating the Educational Academy for the Elderly, where he developed innovative programs that reimagined the role of education in the lives of senior citizens.

He is survived by his wife Chani and children: Zalman Lipskar and Devorah Leah Andrusier.

הַמָּקוֹם יְנַחֵם אֶתְכֶם בְּתוֹךְ שְׁאָר אֲבֵלֵי צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם
May the family be comforted along with the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.