His grandfather, a Hasidic farmer in pre-war Hungary, was murdered during World War II, leaving his father, Reuven, an orphan at the age of 13.

Reuven Schmeltzer was one of the 1,684 Jews who escaped Nazi-controlled Hungary on the Kastner train and spent time in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp before being released in Switzerland.

[8] Though he had no formal musical training,[11] he began performing at weddings and bar mitzvahs in the Haredi Hasidic communities of upstate New York and Brooklyn.

[4] With his thick, round eyeglasses and sidelocks,[12] "outlandish" outfits, and comical YouTube videos,[13] he has rocketed to stardom in the Hasidic music world.

His performance range includes "hard-driving rock tunes, jazzy shuffles, pseudo-rap numbers, solemn prayers, klezmer dances and jokey skits, accompanied by a nine-piece band and a troupe of actors".

After Chabad shluchim Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg were murdered in a 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai and their two-year-old son Moishe was saved, he wrote the song A Letter to Moishe'le.

[24] In February 2008, a large amount of publicity was generated for a concert at Madison Square Garden's WaMu Theater in New York City featuring Schmeltzer and Shloime Gertner, under the playbill "The Big Event".

The notice stated that it was "a serious prohibition to attend or perform" at the concert which would lead to "ribaldry and lightheadedness" and added that it was "forbidden to hire these singers to sing at any party, celebration or charity event".

[40] In December 2011, Schmeltzer sang at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's annual Hanukkah party at the Jewish Heritage Museum, accompanied by the Freilach Orchestra.

[41] In December 2015, Schmeltzer sang at the annual White House Hanukkah Party, and promised President Barack Obama a special gift, a gold and silver yarmulke.

[44] In December 2016, Schmeltzer sang "God Bless America" in Yiddish (as "Gott Bensch Amerike") in Brooklyn Borough Hall at the inauguration of New York Civil Court Judge Rachel Freier.

[45] In September 2017, Reuven Schmeltzer, Lipa's father, died and the Skverer Rebbe came to be menachem avel (to console the mourner) him while sitting shivah.