As a young boy in Poland, Tad Taube remembered seeing his father’s name in print. Newspaper reporters were always asking successful businessman Zygmunt Taube one thing or another — but he was never described as a “successful businessman.”
“The references to him were always by his name, comma, Jew, comma, then whatever else they wanted to say,” recalled Taube, the president of the Koret Foundation and one of the Bay Area’s most active Jewish philanthropists.
“I came over [to the United States] in 1939, about two months before Hitler invaded Poland. I was with my father’s best friend and we were on a train that went from Warsaw to Paris, obviously right across the heart of Nazi Germany. Gestapo agents entered our train several times during our trip and asked to see our papers. Polish passports indicated we were Jews. I was very frightened. I was old enough to know what was going on.”
Taube’s timely escape from the Third Reich is not a segment of his life he talks of frequently. In fact, it was not until he was a prosperous Peninsula businessman in his late 30s that his friendship with Jewish philanthropists Joseph Koret and Carl Bach brought back the memories of his mother “crying for days on end when she found out her father was murdered in Auschwitz.” Those memories re-awakened his commitment to Judaism.
“Up until the late 1960s, Jewish life was not really much of a factor with me. I didn’t pay much attention to it one way or another,” recalled Taube, who will be honored for his philanthropic work both through the Koret Foundation and on his own at a Board of Rabbis of Northern California luncheon on May 21.
In the last few decades, Taube has been making up for lost time in his commitment to the Jewish community. And while he’s become “as involved in Jewish life as anyone I know,” Taube has consistently managed to take the road less traveled — and that, he would say, has made all the difference.
“He has strong views about a variety of things. About freedom and individual liberty. About capitalism as opposed to socialism. About Jewish continuity. About foundations being more cost-effective and businesslike in their operations,” said longtime Taube friend Michael Boskin, an economics professor at Stanford, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Koret board member.
“Joe Koret used to like to repeat the famous phrase, ‘If you give somebody a fish, you give them a meal that day. If you teach someone to fish, you help them feed themselves for a lifetime.’ I think Tad is very much of that school, and his help moving us in that direction is a great improvement.”
Taube, friends and associates say, is not a man who is afraid to speak his mind. A voracious reader and thinker, Taube has his mind on many things.
“Tad has no reservations about speaking his mind about politicians who play the race card or Jewish leaders who grovel to give moral equivalency to Israel’s enemies. He’ll simply say, firmly and directly, ‘You’re wrong, and here’s why,'” said Ernest Weiner, Northern California executive director of the American Jewish Committee and a friend of Taube’s for more than 20 years.
Perhaps the action that most symbolizes Taube’s idea of worthwhile philanthropy is the Koret Israel Economic Development Fund, which awards loans to Israeli entrepreneurs.
“It’s the only free-market loan system in Israel and the largest free-market loan system in the Middle East,” said Taube, a Woodside resident and a member of Reform Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. “It’s created 4,000 jobs and put a lot of businesses on their feet. It’s starting to change the mindset of the country.”
Taube feels his most important contributions to the Jewish community are at Stanford, however, through his work with the Jewish studies department. In addition to financing the acquisition of the Judaic library of private collector Salo Baron, Taube has long chaired the department’s executive advisory board.
“Tad has always understood that an academic department is run by academics but can be shaped by the insights of others,” said Professor Steven Zipperstein, the department chair. “He’s established a faculty research fund and helped encourage others to bring in gifts as well. But above all, I’ve found him a real pleasure to work with.”
Describing himself as “a lone voice in the wilderness” among Jewish organizations, Taube vows to continue working toward the betterment of Jews worldwide — his way.
“Tad has a very big heart, and is interested in doing things with his time and money to make the world a better place,” said Ron Wornick, a friend of Taube’s for 20 years. “He’s like those who say they work for tikkun olam. He just gets there a different way.”