C ommunity / deaths
Lipetz Continued from Page 5
The Lipetz family fled from
Antwerp to Marseilles, France,
then to Portugal, where Lipetz’s
uncle arranged for the family
to migrate to the U.S. on a
visitor’s visa.

After a tumultuous trip to
Ellis Island, they were denied
entry due to the quota of Jews
permitted into the country at
the time.

“We thought we were free
and that everything would be
OK, and nobody was looking
to kill us,” Eric Lipetz said.

“But we were told to go back to
Belgium.” The Philippines was an
American protectorate after
the Spanish-American War,
and Lipetz’s uncle ran a cigar
factory in Manila, making it
the safest place for the family
to seek refuge on the eve of the
Holocaust, but their time there
was marked with hardships.

Eric Lipetz
recalled watching Japanese forces shoot
down an American fighter
plane. Eric and Jacques Lipetz
raced in the direction of the
falling plane, hoping in vain to
save the pilot.

“By the time his parachute
landed on land, he was dead,”
Eric Lipetz recalled. “But we
didn’t know that, so we went
right up to him.”
Realizing more
Axis soldiers were likely to approach
the scene, Jacques Lipetz
convinced his brother, fixated
on the fallen pilot, to run from
the plane’s debris.

“If it wasn’t for Jacques, I
would have stuck around, and
I would have been caught and
killed,” Eric Lipetz said. “He
literally dragged me out of
there.” The event stuck with them
both. “Because he was the oldest,
I think he carried the most
demons,” Eric Lipetz said. “He
understood death better than
my brother and I.”
Jacques Lipetz’s story
is featured in the 2013 film
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM “Rescue in the Philippines”
and the 2008 book “Escape to
Manila: From Nazi Tyranny
to Japanese Terror” by Frank
Ephraim. Though eager to share his
family’s survival story, the
Holocaust weighed deeply on
Lipetz, Friedman-Lipetz said.

“Memories from the
Holocaust stayed with him
his entire life,” Friedman-
Lipetz said. “He just couldn’t
bury it.”
Plagued by food insecu-
rity throughout his time as a
refugee, Lipetz tended to buy
more food than his household
could eat, even decades after
the Holocaust. At times in his
life, he survived solely on rice
and bits of fish, and at one
point, while seeking refuge in
Marseilles with a man who ran
a halvah factory, he only ate
halvah for months.

Lipetz was introverted and
appreciated more in-depth
relationships, said J. Lamar
Freed, a friend of Lipetz
whom he met at a peer super-
vision support group for
psychologists. “What he told me was he
had to work because if he didn’t
work, he would not be paying
the debt he had for escaping
the Holocaust,” Freed said.

“His dedication to his work
was more than just a calling; it
was an obligation.”
Lipetz mostly worked with
clients with injuries or who
were fighting for worker’s
compensation. Friedman-
Lipetz recalls Lipetz taking
calls from patients at 2 or 3
a.m., reluctant to turn down a
request for help.

Though profoundly
impacted by the Holocaust and
committed to working around
the clock, Lipetz had a love for
levity and the finer things.

When he and Friedman-
Lipetz met at a class the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College held in 1987, she
remembers him dressed
impeccably. He bought fine ties
and matched them with his
shirts, she said.

At synagogue, Lipetz
enjoyed talking with the
cantor after services, and the
two would exchange dozens of
puns, many of which Lipetz
came up with himself.

“He lived life thoughtfully,”
Friedman-Lipetz said. “He
enjoyed humor.”
In addition to his wife and
brother, Lipetz is survived by
his children, Andrew and David
Lipetz; stepchildren, Trina
Weingarten and Jed Fishback;
and nine grandchildren.

srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISH EXPONENT
JANUARY 27, 2022
27