Rav Dovid Lipschitz zt"l
הרב דוד בן יעקב אריה ליפשיץ זצ"ל
Tammuz 9 , 5753
Known As: Suvalker Rav
Father's Name: Yaakov Aryeh Lipschitz
Rav Dovid Lipschitz zt"l
Rav Dovid Lipschitz, president of Ezras Torah welfare program in the US, and Dean of Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchonon (1906-1993). Known as the "Suvalker Rav," he was born in Minsk, but moved to Grodno as a child, where he later studied in Yeshivas Shaar Hatorah of Rav Shimon Shkop. He transferred to the Mir yeshiva where he studied under R' Eliezer Yehuda Finkel and Rav Yerucham Levovitz. At age 24, he married Zipporah Chava Yoselewitz and two years later, in 1935, he succeeded his father-in-law as rabbi of Suvalk, a title he carried for the rest of his life. One-half of Suvalk's 6,000 Jews (including the Lifshitz family) escaped to Lithuania. In June 1941, Rav Lifschitz arrived in San Francisco on a boat that carried several other leading sages. Rav Lifschitz's first position was in the USA was in Chicago, but he soon moved to Yeshivas Rabbienu Yitzchak Elchanan (the rabbinical school of what later became Yeshiva University), where he remained for the rest of his life. A small number of his shmuessen were printed posthumously under the title Tehilah Le'Dovid.