Yisrael meir lau kareem abdul-jabbar biography

He previously served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from to Yisrael Meir is the 38th generation in an unbroken family chain of rabbis.

Born Ferdinand Lewis "Lew"

Lau was freed from the Buchenwald concentration camp in Lau has credited a teen prisoner with protecting him in the camp later determined by historian Kenneth Waltzer to be Fyodor Michajlitschenko. His entire family was murdered, with the exception of his older brother, Naphtali Lau-Lavie, his half brother, Yehoshua Lau-Hager, and his uncle already living in Mandate Palestine.

He was ordained as a rabbi in He served as Chief Rabbi in Netanya — , and at that time developed his reputation as a popular orator. Lau is the father of three sons and five daughters. Lau is the uncle of Rabbi Binyamin Benny Lau, an educator and activist in the Religious Zionist movement, and Amichai Lau-Lavie, the founder and artistic director of the Jewish ritual theater company Storahtelling.

On 9 June , Lau was reinstalled as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv after serving in this position from until , when he was appointed Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, a position which he held until Lau has often been characterized as the "consensus rabbi", and has close ties to both Haredi and Modern Orthodox Judaism, particularly in regard to his politics, which have been characterized as moderate Zionist.

One report described him as "too Zionist to be considered Haredi. He is respected internationally by Jews and non-Jews alike, and is one of the few figures in the Haredi world who has managed to gain the trust and admiration of both the Sephardic and Ashkenazic population. Lau has received some negative attention for his stances and remarks on non-Orthodox denominations of Judaism.

Non-Orthodox leaders noted that it was ironic that Lau was being honored for "bridging rifts in Israeli society". Lau's spokespeople said that the fact that he had been approved by the presumably heterogeneous Prize Committee spoke for itself.