Before retiring from Beth David Congregation, Cantor William Lipson had memorized hundreds of Hebrew prayers, trained 1,000 boys and girls for their bar and bat mitzvahs and circumcised more than 5,000 Jewish boys as a sought-after mohel in Miami.

Lipson, who dedicated thousands of Fridays to leading songful prayer at Beth David, Miami's oldest Jewish congregation, died Tuesday in Atlanta after struggling with Alzheimer's disease for the last 2 ½ years. He was 88.

From 1955 to 1985, Lipson was cantor at Beth David, a large Conservative congregation located in The Roads neighborhood in Miami, and saw the position change from that of a skilled spiritual singer trained by his predecessors to that of a professional with academic certification.

In a Miami Herald article written upon his retirement from Beth David at age 64, Lipson bemoaned that his lyrics were increasingly falling on deaf ears.

``As people have become less and less knowledgeable about Judaism and Jewish music, they have less appreciation for the nuances of the music and the role of the cantor has changed,'' said Lipson, a baritone.

Nonetheless, as the Jewish population in Miami grew through the mid-1970s, demand increased for Lipson's services and he became widely known in Miami-Dade County, where South Florida's Jews were concentrated before the Jewish population shifted north.

POPULAR

``He was much in demand throughout the entire region, one because of his skill in the [circumcision] procedure and mostly because of his empathy and ability to relate to people,'' said Rabbi Mitch Chefitz, scholar-in-residence at Temple Israel in Miami, who met Lipson 32 years ago when he circumcised Chefitz's first son.

As the former rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest and of Havurah of South Florida in South Miami until 2001, Chefitz said he recommended Lipson to hundreds of parents for his services. ``He was a congenial fellow who participated in a number of community affairs,'' said Rabbi Emeritus Herbert Baumgard of Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest. ``He was almost universally appreciated and liked.''

Lipson's career had its roots in Chicago, where he was born July 18, 1921 to a poor Russian father who worked as a pushcart vendor and a Polish mother. Growing up in the city's West Side, he discovered pleasure in song and music at the synagogue.

``He would be in synagogue choirs trying to pick up a few bucks here and there and then one thing led to another, it was a baptism by fire, being in the pulpit as you go,'' said his son, Rabbi Norman Lipson of Temple Dor Dorim in Weston.

By his late 30s, William Lipson had been hired as a cantor at Emanuel Synagogue in Oklahoma City, and volunteered as a chaplain for Jewish soldiers at state military bases during World War II. While in Oklahoma, he began a pen-pal friendship with his future wife, Betty, who lived in Akron, Ohio, and who he met through a mutual friend. Lipson later moved to Akron to be a cantor at Beth El Congregation.

DRAWN TO MIAMI

Drawn by its beaches and warm climate, the couple and their three children would vacation in Miami Beach during the summers and, by 1955, Lipson had become the full-time cantor at Beth David.

It was around that time that he helped establish the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, which later awarded him with an honorary doctorate. While at Beth David, Lipson also edited a volume of cantorial recitatives and amassed a large library of synagogue music, which he later donated to the Jewish Studies program at Florida Atlantic University.

In the Miami Herald article that ran upon his retirement from Beth David in 1985, Lipson said his greatest accomplishment was ``raising a generation of literate Jews who appreciate Judaism and Jewish music and feel at home in the synagogue because of my efforts.''

Lipson stopped doing circumcisions in the late 1990s. He tutored students in his home for a number of years and, three years ago, moved to Atlanta to be near his daughter.

Lipson is survived by his wife, Betty B. Lipson, son Rabbi Norman Lipson, and daughters Shelley Milakofsky and Denny Ticker.

Donations can be made to The Cantors Assembly of America or Temple Dor Dorim in Weston.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Arlington Memorial Park in Atlanta.