Summer Edition

Columbia Receives Torah Scroll from Ira Lipman

BY A. DUNLAP-SMITH

Columbia's soon-to-be-completed Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Student Life received a gift of a Sefer Torah Scroll from Tennessee businessman Ira Lipman.

The scroll was dedicated in the University's Faculty House while the center is still under construction on W. 115th Street, near Columbia's campus. During the ceremony, a sofer completed the handwritten document by inscribing the final letters of the Torah on it. Leaders of both the University and Jewish communities attended, including Ira Lipman, and University Trustees Stephen Friedman, John Zuccotti and Robert K. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and benefactor of the Jewish Student Life center.

Lipman gave the Torah Scroll to Columbia in memory of his father, Mark. It is the fifth such Torah Scroll that Lipman has had dedicated in honor of his father's yartzheit (death). Previous recipients are the University of Pennsylvania Hillel, the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Lipman is the chairman, president and CEO of Guardsmark, Inc. He is also the author of "How to Protect Yourself from Crime" and is the director of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.