Menachem Mendel Taub

Menachem Mendel Taub
Kaliver Rebbe
The Kaliver Rebbe (left) with Rabbi Moishe Sternbuch
Full name	Menachem Mendel Taub
Main work	Kol Menachem
Born	1923 Transylvania
Father	Rabbi Yehudah Yechiel Taub
Wife 1	Chana Sarah Shapiro
Wife 2	Sheindel Malnik

Menachem Mendel Taub (born 1923) is the Rebbe of the Kaliv Hasidic dynasty. Born in Transylvania in 1923, he is seventh in a direct paternal line to the founder of the dynasty, Rabbi Yitzchak Izak of Kaliv, a disciple of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk.

His second cousin, Rabbi Moshe Taub, is the Kalover Rebbe of Williamsburg, New York.

Menachem Mendel Taub is the son of Rabbi Yehuda Yechiel Taub, the Rozler Rov, and son-in-law of Grand Rabbi Pinchos Shapiro, the Kechneyer Rebbe, scion of the Nadvorna dynasty. He had six brothers and sisters. He married his first wife, Chana Sara Shapiro, before the start of World War II.

In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, arriving there three days before Shavuot. While in Auschwitz, he was experimented upon by Josef Mengele. Because of "chemical burning experiments", he is unable to grow facial hair; he is also unable to have children. He was transferred from Auschwitz to the Warsaw Ghetto and the Breslau concentration camp, and later to Bergen-Belsen. Six months after the war ended, he reunited with his wife in Sweden. In 1947 they immigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio.

He and his wife immigrated to Israel in 1962. The following year he founded Kiryas Kaliv in Rishon LeZion. The foundation stone was laid on 7 Adar 5723 (3 March 1963), the day of the yahrtzeit of the founder of the dynasty, Grand Rabbi Yitzchak Isak Taub. Several years later he moved his headquarters to Bnei Brak. In 2004, the rebbe's court moved to Jerusalem.