Chaim Christlieb Traugott Lipshytz 1845-
Lipshytz was born in Warsaw in 1845 to an ultra-orthodox Jewish family. He received a thorough Talmudic education, but his parents also made sure he would be educated in secular subjects as well. This was surprising in those days and in the community he lived in.
When Chaim was five years old, his older sister became a believer in Jesus. The family was shocked, and she was obliged to suffer much for her faith. Nevertheless, her testimony and faith in face of persecution impressed Chaim more deeply than his parents would have wished and stirred him to be interested in the Christian faith. When in a secular highschool, he did all he could to listen to the religious instruction given to the gentile pupils. When his father learned of this, he was punished. Still he continued to investigate, undeterred. While still in his teens he was himself convinced that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was baptised and changed his name from Chaim(Life) to Christlieb (Love of Christ) Traugott (Trust in God). His father was so crushed by what he considered to be his son’s act of treachery, that to the day of his death twenty years later, he refused to forgive him.
Christlieb Traugott Lipshytz arrived in London in 1887, and became the assistant missionary to Paul Warschawski, another Jewish believer. When Paul relinquished the mission due to poor health, Lipshytz was asked to take it over. So that two years after his arrival in England, he was appointed director of the society that later became the Barbican Mission to the Jews. Under Lipshytz’s direction the work grew and expanded.
A medical mission was established in the East End of London and on the 27th March 1909, the Naomi home for Jewish children was opened, which had room for up to twenty-five children.
Bernstein writes that “From the first, Mr. Lipshytz exercised remarkable tact and ability, and it became increasingly evident that under his able direction the mission was destined to become a powerful agency in proclaiming the Gospel to the Jews and winning their allegiance to Christ.”
Works
Der Ebionitismus in der Judenmission, oder Christentum und nationaljüdisches Bewusstsein. Vortrag, etc by Christlieb T. Lipshytz (Unknown Binding – 1912)
Sources:
Bernstein, A. Jewish Witnesses for Christ. 1909. New edition 1999 by Keren Ahvah Meshichit.
Moore, Mike. The Importance of Being Ernest.