Ezekiel Taub

Yechezkel Taub or George Ezekiel Taub Nagel (7 October 1895 – 22 May 1986) was the Yabloner Rebbe (now Jabłonna, Poland).

Taub was a rebbe, a Hasidic leader, involved the migration from Europe to Mandatory Palestine in the interwar years, and the founder of Kfar Hasidim. He was a namesake and descendant of the first Yechezkel Taub, the Kuzmirer Rebbe.

The Hasidic settlers had no experience in the field; Many people were elderly or breastfeeding and unable to work; Although Arab tenant farmers had accepted relocation money, many refused to move Unusually heavy rains and flooding ruined the fields that year, and in turn caused malaria-spreading mosquitoes to proliferate Many settlers died from snake poisoning or malaria; Bedouins killed livestock and contaminated the drinking supply; Money from Europe eventually dwindled.

The result was a village on the brink of starvation. Taub negotiated with the Jewish National Fund. Their agreement called for the land to be turned over to the JNF, the village to be moved off the hilltop, closer to the farming valley, for crops and orchards to replace dairy farming, for expert farmers from Hapoel Hamizrachi to join the community and be given land stakes, and for unproductive members of the community to return to Poland until the enterprise could support them. In return, the JNF provides funds to sustain the people and to seed the new enterprise. But two months later, the Nazis invaded Poland. Taub was unable to return to Palestine to effectuate the plan. Desperate to do anything to help fight the Nazis, he began working as a laborer in war-related programs.

New life Reports of the annihilation of Polish Jewry caused Taub enormous distress. He had failed his Polish followers and sent many elderly and infirm emigrés back to Poland. He was also certain their remaining relatives in Kfar Hasidim blamed him for their deaths, though the Jewish National Fund had forced him to do so. Distraught, and believing he had no Hasidim left to call him Rebbe, he abandoned not only the title, but all the trappings of Orthodox Jewry. He became sick and was hospitalized. Some introspection prompted by sick visits from a journalist and a secularized Israeli relative, Top Gun author Ehud Yonay, led him to decide to pursue a college degree.

Return Upon completion of his graduate degree, he reluctantly agreed to take a trip to Israel, fearful of his reception by those who knew his past. His family quietly planned a grand reunion (without his knowledge) of his religious and pioneer followers and their families, both Hasidic and secular, welcoming him back. He agreed to move back permanently, but shuttled between Kfar Hasidim and Los Angeles regularly until 1981, settling his affairs. He also restarted Jewish religious practices as he came to realize that, despite the difficulties establishing Kfar Hasidim, the moshav had helped save many members of his community from the Nazi Holocaust. Speaking in front of the community at the grand reunion in Kfar Hasidim, he said "I never thought about the fact that I saved your lives, only about all the lives that were lost. I never thought about what I gave you, only about what I took away from you. But now it's all become clear.”

Upon his permanent return, he resumed his role as Yabloner Rebbe, serving quietly in that capacity in Kfar Hasidim for the last few years of his life.