His inspiration seems to have come from, of all places, the inside of a Wisconsin tavern. Elliot Lubar may have been launched into a life of human service from a bar.
His father, Saul Lubar, owned the 1600 Bar on State Street in Milwaukee.
Mindy Lubar Price remembers her father, Elliot, at the place vaguely, from her childhood: “He watched what his father did there, which was really, it was like bar social work. He found a different way to do that.”
The different way was a life of service that included his employment as a social worker, then leading Milwaukee’s Jewish Family Services, and ultimately finding ways to continue to help even after a traumatic brain injury.
Elliot Lubar died Feb 3, 2026. He was 82.
Elliot Lubar was a longtime leader of Jewish Family Services, serving the agency for more than three decades. He guided the Milwaukee-based agency through major periods of growth, including extensive work resettling immigrants from the former Soviet Union and expanding services for adults with developmental disabilities and serious mental illness.
“My father and I think all great leaders – they don’t follow the money … they follow the need,” Price said. “I’m just so struck by, in these weeks, the cards and the letters and people’s stories of how he touched their life or their child’s life, or their parents. I feel like there must have been 10 of him.”
But no, there was just one – a man who also loved studying Judaism, his heart bound up with Jewish values. He studied with Rabbi Ron Shapiro and with the Twerski community. “He couldn’t get enough of it,” Price said.
Elliot Lubar helped strengthen JFS institutionally, including leading the move to a dedicated headquarters and mentoring future leaders. He remained deeply connected to the agency throughout his life, attending the Woodale Crossing ribbon cutting in July.
She sees his philosophy this way: “to walk in other people’s shoes, to meet them where they’re at, to realize when you have enough, and when you have enough, it means you have a responsibility to give to somebody else.”
“I mean, it wasn’t large amounts of money, but he was giving money almost every day of his life. And, you know, I always knew it, but I really knew it toward the end, when I was the one with the checkbook.” It was a bit of a surprise that he emphasized support for the needs of animals, not just people, but then it fit into the larger puzzle, as a commitment to decency.
“And it was all manifested through programs at JFS, older adults, child care services, mental health, community-based service … where there was a need. He would find money … sometimes, where other people were like, really, that’s not the sexiest or the most interesting, or you’re not going to get money for that ….”
And then: The accident.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Elliot Lubar was leaving Lambeau Field after a Packers game on Nov. 14, 2004, when a man running through the concourse “hit me with full force.”
“I went up in the air and came down on my head,” he later told the newspaper, noting that the man was running because a hat had been stolen.
Mindy Lubar Price remembers the night: “We weren’t sure if he was going to make it or not. And then the doctor said, ‘Well, I hope he doesn’t do anything that requires executive functioning in his job.’”
At first, he didn’t know who his family was, or how to count. He was CEO of Jewish Family Services.
“JFS was so kind and so amazing and really didn’t want to let go,” Mindy Lubar Price said. “And he had to say to them, you have to – I’m not going to be able to do this job anymore. And that was just really tough but also kind of a really beautiful thing.”
In 2010, six years after the accident, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Eliott Lubar had gone through vocational rehabilitation for years and had returned to driving.
“My dad had an office (at JFS) for many, many, many years, and … his email address was still Jewish Family Services, because that was very important to him,” Mindy Lubar Price said.
He also volunteered elsewhere quite a bit, despite the brain injury and an imperfect recovery, marred by headaches and more need for sleep.
“He was at Penfield Children’s Center every week and holding medically fragile children. He served on a few different boards of directors, and he consulted, informally, with other leaders in town,” Mindy Lubar Price said. “And he hung out with friends. Really his biggest things – sports, family and some friends.”
“There’s so many people out there who have appreciation for him, in all these different ways and they’re in pain. And I feel for that, really. They’re asking me, what they can do for me or for the family and I’m saying, look, I think the best that we can do for him is to carry on the legacy of this work … carrying out the Jewish values.”
“It doesn’t just mean JFS, but those values.”
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Elliot Lubar led a life of service that included work as a social worker, leading Milwaukee’s Jewish Family Services, and finding ways to continue to help even after a traumatic injury.
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