Israel Meir Lau

Israel Meir Lau, born on June 1, 1937, in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, is one of the most recognizable figures in modern Israeli rabbinate and Holocaust remembrance. A child who survived the ghettos, forced labor camps, and Buchenwald, he went on to become Chief Rabbi of Israel, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv–Jaffa, an educator, a public speaker, and chairman of the Yad Vashem Council. His life connects a Jewish world destroyed in the Holocaust with the rebuilding of Jewish national life in Israel.

Lau’s importance lies not only in the offices he held, but in the way he transformed personal survival into public testimony and communal responsibility. For decades he spoke to religious and secular Israelis, Jewish communities around the world, young people, government leaders, and religious figures. He presented Jewish tradition as a living inheritance capable of addressing memory, identity, education, moral responsibility, and the challenges of contemporary society.

Childhood in the Holocaust and Arrival in Israel

Israel Meir Lau was the youngest son of Chaya, née Frenkel–Teomim, and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, and a descendant of a distinguished rabbinic family. His older brothers were Yehoshua, Naphtali, and Shmuel Yitzhak. He spent the first years of the war in the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto, the first ghetto established in occupied Poland. In October 1942, his father and brother Shmuel Yitzhak were deported with most of the city’s Jews to Treblinka, where they were murdered. Israel Meir escaped the deportation with his mother.

During another deportation action in November 1944, his mother managed to place him with his older brother Naphtali, who was being sent to a labor camp. She did not survive. The two brothers were taken to a labor camp in Częstochowa and later to Buchenwald concentration camp. There, a Russian soldier named Fyodor Mikhailichenko helped protect the child’s life. When Buchenwald was liberated by the United States Army, the eight-year-old Lau, known by his childhood nickname Lulek, was recognized as the youngest liberated prisoner in the camp.

A few months later, he came to British-controlled Palestine with the group known as the Buchenwald Children, traveling aboard the ship Mataroa before being taken to the Atlit detention camp. After leaving Atlit, he lived in Kiryat Motzkin with the family of his father’s sister, who was married to Rabbi Mordechai Vogelman, the city’s first rabbi. At the state religious Aharon HaRoeh School in nearby Kiryat Shmuel, he completed the education interrupted by the war. He later studied at the Kol Torah, Knesset Yehezkel, and Ponovezh yeshivas.

From about the age of fifteen, Lau was a regular presence in the home of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevi Herzog and was responsible for helping maintain the prayer quorum there. In 1956 he took part in the activities of the Haver HaPe'ilim movement, which sought to strengthen religious observance among new immigrants. These early experiences shaped his lifelong emphasis on Jewish education and on communicating Jewish tradition to the whole of Israeli society.

Education, Rabbinate, and Community Leadership

After marrying Chaya-Ita, the daughter of Rabbi Yitzhak Yedidya Frankel, Lau moved to central Israel. He taught Talmud at Brenner High School in Petah Tikva and at Zeitlin High School in Tel Aviv, beginning a public career that combined rabbinic leadership with teaching. He first served as rabbi of the Or Torah synagogue in south Tel Aviv and, in 1965, became rabbi of the Tiferet Zvi synagogue.

In Tel Aviv he participated in public discussions about Jewish tradition broadcast on Kol Yisrael. These appearances helped establish him as a speaker able to explain religious ideas in accessible language to audiences beyond the observant community. In 1971 he was appointed rabbi of northern Tel Aviv neighborhoods, and in 1978 he was elected Chief Rabbi of Netanya. In 1983 he became a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council.

In 1988 Lau was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv–Jaffa, serving alongside the city’s Sephardi chief rabbi, Rabbi Hayyim David HaLevi. He held the position until his election as Chief Rabbi of Israel and returned to it in 2005 after completing his national term. Through these positions he became one of the most prominent voices in Israeli religious life, known for his eloquence and for his ability to present Jewish tradition in the context of a diverse modern city.

Chief Rabbi of Israel

In 1993 Lau was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. He served for ten years, the term established by law, until 2003. As a national religious leader, he addressed questions of Jewish law and communal life, strengthened the relationship between Israeli society and the institutions of the rabbinate, and represented Orthodox Judaism to the wider Israeli public and to Jewish communities abroad.

His leadership placed particular emphasis on unity and dialogue across social boundaries. He served during years of intense debate over Jewish identity, tradition, religion, and the character of the state. His ability to speak with warmth and clarity made him a familiar presence far beyond the religious sector. After completing his national service, he returned to the rabbinate of Tel Aviv–Jaffa and remained in that position until retiring in 2017 at the age of eighty.

Alongside his rabbinic work, Lau hosted the television program Shalom Levo Shabbat on Israel’s Channel One. Broadcast on Fridays before the beginning of Shabbat, the program explored the weekly Torah portion and brought Jewish texts and ideas into the homes of a broad television audience.

Holocaust Remembrance and Public Service

Lau’s survival made him an important witness to the destruction of European Jewry and a representative of the generation of Holocaust survivors. He delivered many speeches at commemorative ceremonies and before national leaders, connecting his personal story with the fate of his family, his community, and the Jewish people. His testimony helped make Holocaust remembrance immediate and human: a history of children, families, communities, and lives violently uprooted.

In November 2008, the Israeli government approved his appointment as chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, succeeding Yosef Lapid after Lapid’s death. The position placed Lau at the center of the public leadership of Israel’s national Holocaust remembrance institution, whose work encompasses commemoration, documentation, research, and education. His experience gave the role particular resonance: he embodied the meeting point between living testimony and the institutional work of transmitting memory to future generations.

Interfaith Relations and Public Influence

As Chief Rabbi of Israel, Lau worked to maintain contact between Jewish leaders and the leadership of the Catholic Church. He met Pope John Paul II and continued his interfaith activity after leaving the office of Chief Rabbi. Such engagement carried special significance in light of the history of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe and the need for dialogue that respects both the uniqueness of Jewish history and the memory of the Holocaust.

Lau became known as an articulate representative of Orthodox Judaism before audiences far removed from religious life. His public teaching addressed tradition, family, education, memory, and the place of Judaism in Israeli society. In matters concerning the end of life, he supported an approach permitting passive euthanasia and the withholding of invasive treatment from a terminally ill patient, reflecting his engagement with difficult moral and medical questions through a halakhic framework.

Recognition

In 2005 Lau received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The award recognized his cumulative contribution to the rabbinate, education, public leadership, and Holocaust remembrance. It also reflected his place as a figure who worked for decades at the intersection of Torah life, state institutions, and the broader Israeli public.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Israel Meir Lau merits inclusion in Moreshet because his life and work illuminate several defining chapters of Jewish and Israeli history: survival in the Holocaust, immigration to Israel, the building of religious and educational institutions, rabbinic leadership, and national remembrance. He did not occupy merely ceremonial roles. As a city rabbi, Chief Rabbi of Israel, and chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, he served within institutions that shaped the lives of individuals, families, and communities in Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

His historical significance also rests on his ability to carry Holocaust testimony into public life, speak about Judaism to diverse audiences, and create channels of dialogue with other faiths. Moreshet.com preserves the connection between his personal journey and the wider legacy he represents: responsibility for memory, commitment to Jewish education, public service, and the continuing life of Jewish tradition in the State of Israel.