Yisrael Meir Lau

Yisrael Meir Lau was born in 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski

Lau was born on 1 June 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, the youngest son of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, the town's last chief rabbi. His father was murdered at Treblinka. Lau was held in a labor camp and then in Buchenwald, where his brother Naphtali protected him, and he was freed in 1945.

In July 1945 he came to Mandatory Palestine with Naphtali and was raised by relatives in Kiryat Motzkin. He studied at the Kol Torah, Ponevezh and Knesses Chizkiyahu yeshivas and was ordained as a rabbi in 1961.

He served in the IDF in kashrut supervision roles. He married Chaya Ita Frankel, daughter of Rabbi Yitzchok Yedidya Frankel, and they had 8 children, among them Rabbi David Lau.

He led synagogues in Tel Aviv and became chief rabbi of Netanya in 1978 and of Tel Aviv in 1988. He was Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003 and met Pope John Paul II in 1993. He returned as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 2005 and retired in 2017.

In 2008 he became chairman of Yad Vashem. He received the Israel Prize in 2005 and the French Legion of Honor in 2011, and wrote a memoir of the Holocaust.