Zvi Israel Tau

Zvi Israel Tau was born in 1938 in Vienna

Tau was born in Vienna in 1938 as Hans Tau, to Jewish parents from Galicia. His father was a banker and his mother a chemist. After the Anschluss the family moved to the Netherlands, where they hid in Hilversum during the Holocaust.

After the war he attended a public school and was drawn to Zionism through the local Bnei Akiva. Following his mother's death, he immigrated to Israel at 17 against his father's wishes. He studied at Yeshivat HaDarom under Rabbi Yehuda Amital, then moved to Mercaz HaRav.

From the 1960s he held an influential position at Mercaz HaRav as a close student of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. He taught at Kerem B'Yavneh from 1968 and gave classes on faith and the teachings of Rabbi Kook and his son. In 1997 he left Mercaz HaRav with several teachers and students over plans for an academic framework, and founded Har Hamor.

Tau is the ideological leader of the Noam party, which opposes LGBTQ policies. Police complaints were filed against him over a book of his, alleging incitement against the LGBT community. His first wife, Chana, died in 2004, and he later married Batya Cohen.