A well-known local philanthropist has died. Dr. Jacques Lipson, better known to his friends as “Jack," died Tuesday after a long illness. He was 84 years old.
Lipson practiced internal medicine, and when he retired in 2012 had been in practice over 60 years. He was the longest attending physician at Rochester General Hospital when he retired.
He and his wife Dawn Lipson have contributed to numerous organizations, particularly in the area of the arts and education. And it is their name that is on the Lipson Cancer Center at Rochester General.
Dawn Lipson says their involvement in that facility began in the late 1990s, after her husband survived a bout with lung cancer.
“So we decided, if we came out of the other end of that, doing well, that we would do something so that people would be treated in an environment that matched the great medicine that was available. And so once he started to get better, and we got the gift of time, that was the first thing that we worked on.“
Dawn Lipson tells WXXI News that the couple started out small with the organizations they supported, and that effort just grew over time.
“We both had a vision, that if you have the ability, you are required to, as they say in the Jewish religion, help to repair the world. And so we both looked at it as things that, what could we do that was going to make life better, and it was always about local, our giving was all local, it was all about what can we help do here. “
Jack also studied the oboe at the Eastman School of Music. Dawn Lipson is currently chair of the board of the RPO. Among the arts organizations they supported recently is the Nazareth College Arts Center and its wellness and rehabilitation institute.
Dawn Lipson is also a member of both the WXXI Board of Trustees and the Geva Theatre Center Board of Trustees.
Funeral arrangements for Jacques Lipson are still pending.
