Tad Taube, a giant of Jewish philanthropy who fled Europe in 1939 and charted a trail of largesse that stretched from the Bay Area across the U.S. and all the way to Israel and his native Poland, died on Saturday at his home in San Mateo County. He was 94.
As founder and chairman of Taube Philanthropies, Taube established a nearly 30-year legacy of giving that touched countless aspects of local Jewish and community life, from the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life in Palo Alto, to the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford (his alma mater), to numerous Bay Area Jewish agencies and institutions.
After graduating from Stanford and earning his fortune in business and real estate, Taube decided in the early 2000s that philanthropy would become his life’s focus. “I shifted the emphasis of my work from making money to giving money away,” he told J. in 2019.
He supported Hillels and JCCs and invested in health care initiatives, including the Tad and Dianne Taube Pavilion at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Taube was also a longtime board member and president of the Koret Foundation.
Taube’s foundation also gave millions to beneficiaries in arts, education and civic life, such as the United Way, the Commonwealth Club of California, Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Ronald McDonald House and the San Francisco Opera.
And for that, he received dozens of awards and honors, including a lifetime humanitarian service award from Jewish Family and Children’s Services, the Scopus Award from Hebrew University, and recognition from the Anti-Defamation League and Israel Bonds, among others.
One of the causes nearest and dearest to Taube’s heart was the Jewish Heritage Initiative of Poland, created in 2003 to focus on the revitalization of Jewish life in the country where he first lived. Taube, who was born in Krakow, was just 8 years old in 1939 when he escaped Poland — and the fate of more than 90 percent of Polish Jewry, some 3 million people who were murdered in the Holocaust.
Despite the painful memories, Taube never lost his connection to his birthplace, and in 2014 he led a Bay Area delegation to Warsaw for the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (POLIN Museum), for which he was a founding benefactor. The initiative also produced Krakow’s Jewish Culture Festival, now in its 34th year. Taube was named Poland’s honorary consul to the Bay Area in 2007, and in 2015 he received the Commander’s Cross, Poland’s highest civilian honor.
In the early 2000s in Poland, “Jewish life was a desert,” Taube told J. in 2019. Now, he said, “I feel like it’s bloomed.”
Taube is survived by his wife of 28 years, Dianne, and children Mark, Paula, Sean, Juddson, Travis and Zakary. Contributions in his memory may be made to American Friends of the POLIN Museum in New York or to Ronald McDonald House Charities at Stanford University.