Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, 1937-

The youngest survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Lau arrived in the Land of Israel with a brother in 1945. He was the chief rabbi of Netanya from 1978 to 1988 and of Tel Aviv from 1988 to 1993, when he became the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel for a decade. He has chaired the advisory Yad Vashem council since 2008. He has been called a “consensus rabbi” linking Haredi and Modern Orthodox Jews.

Photo: Ya’acov Sa’ar, Israeli Government Press Office