Rabbi Israel Meir Lau: survivor, chief rabbi and author
26 October 2026 / 26. Oktober 2026
Israel Meir Lau was born in 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski, survived the Holocaust as a child, and reached Mandatory Palestine in 1945. He served as Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003. His autobiography Out of the Depths recounts childhood, loss, survival and subsequent religious life.
A childhood destroyed by Nazism
Rabbi Israel Meir Lau was born in 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, into a longstanding rabbinical family. His father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, was among those murdered during the Holocaust. As a young child, Israel Meir Lau, sometimes called Lulek, survived deportations and the Buchenwald concentration camp. The fate of his mother and much of his extended family is part of the history he later recorded. With his older brother Naphtali, he reached British Mandatory Palestine in 1945, shortly after liberation. His life is documented extensively by Yad Vashem, whose exhibition places individual memory alongside broader evidence of the destruction of European Jewry.
Religious education and service
After the war Lau studied Torah and Talmud at religious academies and gradually moved into communal leadership. He served as rabbi in a number of communities, later as chief rabbi of Netanya and chief rabbi of Tel Aviv–Jaffa. In 1993 he became Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, serving until 2003. Israel has two chief rabbis representing Ashkenazi and Sephardi religious traditions, and the institution has responsibility in various religious matters. Its powers and role are regularly debated in Israeli public life. Lau’s biography therefore belongs not only to rabbinical history but also to the study of religion and state in a modern democracy.
What he wrote
Lau is best known internationally for his autobiography Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last, published in English in 2011. The book describes survival, family separation, arrival in the Land of Israel and his later religious life. It is both personal testimony and a contribution to public remembrance. Other writings treat Jewish law, practice, ethics and religious questions, including the Hebrew-language works Yahadut: Halacha LeMaase and Yachel Israel. Readers should not confuse published testimony with direct historical proof for every broader claim about the war; the most responsible approach compares memoirs with archives and Holocaust scholarship.
Public statements and remembrance
In speeches Lau has emphasized that survivors carry a particular responsibility to tell younger generations what happened. As chairman of the Yad Vashem Council he has spoken frequently at commemorations and educational events. He has also argued for social solidarity and religious dialogue. In a 2023 interview concerning Israel’s internal political disputes he cautioned about divisions by recalling traditions about the destruction of the Second Temple. Such comments should be understood in their public and religious context, rather than turned into claims that he predicted political events. His reflections connect the memory of persecution to debates about how a contemporary society treats its members.
Books, sources and further research
Yad Vashem provides an authoritative biography and selected images, while Google Books lists the English edition of Out of the Depths with bibliographic information. The memoir’s publisher and historical reviews help readers identify the correct edition. Book availability at retailers changes, so a search link on Amazon is presented as a search rather than as an assertion that a specific item is in stock. A biography must also distinguish Israel Meir Lau from his son David Lau, who served as Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi in a later period. The two held the same national office at different times, a detail that can otherwise create considerable confusion.