Armand Lipman

Origins and early life

Armand Bernard Lipman was born at Phalsbourg on 12 August 1858, son of the chief rabbi Benjamin Lipman, who served at Metz and then at Lille.

Work and career

He was admitted to the École polytechnique on 1 October 1878, went on to the artillery and engineering school, and made a career as an officer: lieutenant, captain and then commandant in artillery regiments, and a certified staff officer. A rabbi's son in the French officer corps in those decades was not a common thing, and his career runs alongside the years of the Dreyfus Affair, when the army was the ground on which the question of the Jews in France was fought out.

He retired from active service in 1907 but was recalled by the war, and served as chief of staff of the 85th territorial division. On his return he put himself, in his own phrase, at the service of Judaism: he worked with the Jewish organisations and periodicals of France and published scholarly works on Jewish subjects. He was promoted officer of the Legion of Honour in 1929 and died at Versailles on 2 February 1935.