Dovid Lifshitz was born in
Minsk, then
Imperial Russia in 1906 to Yaakov Aryeh and Ittel Lifshitz. His paternal grandfather, Shlomo Zalman Lifshitz, was a businessman in Grodno as well as a distinguished Talmudic scholar, who authored the Olas Shlomo. He attended cheder together with
Avraham Even-Shoshan, where they learned Hebrew and Hebrew grammar from Avraham's father, who was the teacher. In 1919, his family moved to
Grodno, where he was a foremost student of the famed Rabbi
Shimon Shkop in the
Grodno Yeshiva (
Shaar Hatorah). He later studied in the
Mir yeshiva, staying until 1932, receiving
semicha and becoming well known as an outstanding scholar. In 1933, he married Tzipporah Chava Yoselowitz, the daughter of the renowned rabbi of
Suvalk, Yosef Yoselowitz. Upon the death of his father-in-law in 1935, Lifshitz became chief rabbi of the important city and its 27 congregations, where he developed a reputation as a warm and involved spiritual leader, concerned with all Jews. He remained in Suvalk until the Nazis captured the city in 1940. ==Relocation to America==