RACHEL “CHEL” LIPSCHUTZ

10/23/1923 - 09/15/2022

Rachel “Chel” Lipschutz October 23, 1923 – September 15, 2022

On the verge of her 99th birthday, Rachel “Chel” Lipschutz passed away on September 15th, 2022 in Corralitos, California where she had been living this past year, after more than 60 years in Houston, Texas. Chel, as she was known since childhood, lived a tumultuous life and did not go quietly into the night. She was born in Antwerp, Belgium on October 23, 1923, the youngest of three daughters whose parents fled the post-World War One chaos of three great collapsing empires (Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary), landing in Antwerp, Belgium (on the way to New York, which they never reached). There, her father started up a business making lingerie, while the rest of the family made a life.

Chel grew up in Antwerp’s Jewish community, speaking Yiddish at home, Flemish in the streets, and French in school (she spoke eight languages altogether, in addition to these three: Dutch, German, Hebrew, Spanish and, of course, English). Throughout her life, she remembered fondly her childhood friends and their activities in

Antwerp and her kvutza in Maccabi Hatzair, one of the several Zionist movements active before the war. This seemingly idyllic childhood came to an end on May 10th, 1940, with the Nazi invasion of Belgium. Her family fled the city the next day, stopping only at the local hospital to pick up Chel’s eldest sister. They then headed south through France, by train and on foot, experiencing the trials and tribulations of all Jewish refugees who took flight from the advancing army. In Bordeaux, her father was able to buy passage for the family on a ship to England but was almost kept from boarding by a platoon of Polish soldiers who pushed them aside, took the choicest cabins, and made them sleep on deck.

Chel and her family ended up in London, arriving in time for the Blitz. At age 17, she trained to cut diamonds in a workshop with 100 Jewish boys, which she did for the duration of the war (she was one of the first women diamond cutters in London). Post war she married and, with her new husband, joined her in-laws in New York. After two years, restlessness led the young couple to Palestine where they both joined the army and participated in the Israeli war of independence. They returned to the US in 1949 and until 1966 lived the typical lives of the Jewish immigrant middle class, moving from New Jersey to boomtown Houston, Texas in 1959.

In 1966, Chel divorced and began to flourish mightily. She took classes at University of Houston (UofH), eventually receiving two undergrad degrees in foreign languages and a master’s degree in French literature and linguistics. In the mid-1970s, she taught high school French in Clear Lake, south of Houston and, in 1974, moved to Austin to work at the Texas Education Agency. But Houston beckoned and Chel returned there in 1976, joining the UofH administration in various positions in which she excelled, and for which routinely received performance awards.

After retiring in 1988,

Chel became a docent at the Houston Museum of

Fine Arts. She learned and imparted much about art and loved the museum atmosphere. Chel was a polymath, a voracious reader and an extraordinarily cultivated and creative woman. She could expound on multiple subjects in her eight languages. Her Galitsianer Yiddish was full of aphorisms and observations for every occasion and those are now truly lost with her passing. She painted, drew, knitted and embroidered naif art pieces. Her fashion sense, acquired in London, was impeccable. She was always dressed to the nines with an ever present and stylish scarf around her neck. She is survived by her three children, two daughters-inlaw, 7 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Chel will be sorely missed by her family and longtime friends. Her family is extremely grateful for the love and care shown to her by the staff at De Un Amor in Corralitos, California, and the work of Hospice of Santa Cruz County.

A celebration of Chel’s life is planned in Houston for early 2023. A website in her memory can be found at https://chellipschutz.page/.