At its weekly cabinet meeting the government approved the
appointment of Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chief Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau as
head of the Yad Vashem Council in place of Yosef (Tommy)
Lapid, who passed away five months ago.
Rabbi Lau was born in Piotrkow, Poland in 1937 to a well-
known rabbinical family. He spent the first years of the war
in the Piotrkow Trybunalski Ghetto. In October of 1942 his
father and siblings were transported with most of the other
Jews in the city to Treblinka, where they perished. Rabbi Lau
was spared when he and his mother managed to evade the
transfer.
During a selection in 1944 his mother managed to pair him
with his older brother, Naftoli, who had been chosen for a
labor camp, but she herself did not survive. With his 18-year-
old brother looking out for him, the young boy was sent with
a group of men to a work camp in Czenstochova and eventually
wound up at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. When US
soldiers liberated the camp the eight-year-old boy, nicknamed
Lulek, was known as the youngest surviving prisoner. After
the war he moved to Eretz Yisroel.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev praised the decision. "I've
had the privilege of knowing Rabbi Lau personally for many
years," he noted in a statement. "The issue of the Holocaust
is close to his heart and he sees perpetuating the memory of
the Holocaust as a Jewish and a universal value."
Rabbi Lau thanked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the cabinet
members who approved his appointment. He said the timing of
the announcement was particularly moving since it was the
week marking 70 years since Kristallnacht. Rabbi Lau added
that he hopes to work in collaboration with Mr. Shalev to
promote Holocaust remembrance in Israel and the Diaspora.
