Robert Lipshutz

(1921 - 2010)

Atlanta native and Temple member Robert Lipshutz served as White House counsel for President Jimmy Carter and played a critical role in the Camp David peace accords. Lipshutz graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law and served in the Army during World War II. His first wife, Barbara Levin, died in 1970, and he married Betty Beck three years later.

A prominent Atlanta attorney, Lipshutz met Carter in 1966 while Carter was a state senator trying to unseat segregationist Governor Lester Maddox. Carter lost that election, but won the governorship of Georgia four years later. He appointed Lipshutz to the Georgia Board of Human Resources and its Commission on Compensation. During Carter’s presidential campaign, Lipshutz served as treasurer and later as White House counsel for three years. He was active in cases involving affirmative action and advocated appointing African Americans and women to positions within the administration.

Lipshutz encouraged President Carter to establish a presidential commission on the Holocaust that resulted in the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Lipshutz served as president of The Temple from 1972 to 1975.