Dan Be'eri (born 1964 or 1965) [1] is a French-born Israeli rabbi, founder of the Jewish educational method known as the Barkai method [2] [3] and a former member of Gush Emunim and the Jewish Underground.
Born to a French Protestant family, his father having converted to Protestantism from Catholicism. [4] He immigrated to Israel after the Six Day War after having previously lived in the country for a short period of time as a kibbutz volunteer before returning to France for his university studies. [4] [5]
In 1969, he successfully converted to Judaism and married his Jewish girlfriend, Shoshanna Tannenhaus. [5] The couple had nine children. [6] Be'eri completed his studies at a yeshiva in 1973. [6]
He joined Gush Emunim in 1976, and by the late 1970s had joined a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock. [4] [6] In the 1980s, he was a member of the Jewish Underground. [4] In 1985, he received a prison sentence for taking part in the plot to attack the Dome of the Rock, which was never carried out. [1] [7] According to Be'eri, the plan aimed to provoke Egypt into abandoning its peace treaty with Israel, and delay the return of the Sinai Peninsula (then under Israeli control) to Egypt. [1] He also testified that he left the plan after the Jewish settlement of Yamit, in Sinai, was abandoned in April 1982. [1] While in prison awaiting his sentencing, Be'eri undertook a hunger strike in November 1984. [8] He reached a plea bargain deal in March 1985. [1] His three year sentence was commuted by Israeli President Chaim Herzog in December 1985. [9]
He has promoted the celebrating of Hannukah through the lens of modern Zionism, drawing parallels between the Macabees and the Jewish Underground. [7]
In 1978, he founded a Talmud Torah, a religious children's school, in Kiriyat Arba, a Jewish settlement near Hebron in the West Bank. [6] At this school, Be'eri integrated general and Jewish subjects (with the exception of mathematics). [10]
Be'eri has criticized the traditional model of yeshiva learning, believing it to no longer be necessary in the modern state of Israel. [10]
He is a member of the advisory board of AlHatorah.org. [11]