Dan Be'eri

Dan Be'eri (born 1964 or 1965){{Cite web |date=1985-03-29 |title=Two Confessed Jewish Underground Members Expected to Be Sentenced Soon |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/two-confessed-jewish-underground-members-expected-to-be-sentenced-soon |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}} is a French-born Israeli rabbi, founder of the Jewish educational method known as the Barkai method{{Cite journal |last1=Abowitz|first1=Shoshi|first2=Nathan |last2=Zaboulani|date=2025-01-07 |title=The Barkai Method for Teaching Humash |url=https://www.lookstein.org/journal-article/w_25/the-barkai-method-for-teaching-humash/#:~:text=One%20noteworthy%20example%20of%20this,commentaries%20and%20the%20Oral%20Torah. |journal=Jewish Education Leadership|volume=23|issue=2|access-date=2025-05-12 |language=en-US|publisher=Bar-Ilan University}}{{Cite web |title=הרב דן בארי: הסיבות להצלחתו הפדגוגית, והחיבור בין עמדותיו הפוליטיות ל'עבריות' - מכון מניטו - הרב יהודא לאון אשכנזי ז"ל |url=https://manitou.org.il/arcive/biography/3039-danbeeri |access-date=2025-05-12 |website=manitou.org.il}} and a former member of Gush Emunim and the Jewish Underground.

Biography

Born to a French Protestant family, his father having converted to Protestantism from Catholicism.{{Cite book |last=Gorenberg |first=Gershom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7HFakEi3uEC&dq=%22Dan+Be'eri%22&pg=PA133 |title=The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount |date=2002-03-15 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-984040-3 |pages=133 |language=en}} 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.

In 1969, he successfully converted to Judaism and married his Jewish girlfriend, Shoshanna Tannenhaus.{{Cite web |date=2020-03-15 |title=המטרה: החזרת המכילתא למרכז בית המדרש |url=https://www.makorrishon.co.il/judaism/212279/ |access-date=2025-05-12 |website=מקור ראשון |language=he-IL}} The couple had nine children.{{Cite book |last=Kepel |first=Gilles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jGfujkArsMkC&dq=%22Dan+Be'eri%22&pg=PA168 |title=The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World |date=1994 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-01314-5 |pages=168 |language=en}} Be'eri completed his studies at a yeshiva in 1973.

= Right-wing activities =

He joined Gush Emunim in 1976, and by the late 1970s had joined a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Jewish Underground. 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.{{Cite book |last=Don-Yehiya |first=Eliezer |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XCNHDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Dan+Be'eri%22&pg=PT423 |title=Israeli Judaism: The Sociology of Religion in Israel |date=2018-01-16 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-29390-7 |editor-last=Deshen |editor-first=Shlomo |language=en |chapter=16. Hanukkah and the Myth of the Macabees in Ideology and Society}} 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. He also testified that he left the plan after the Jewish settlement of Yamit, in Sinai, was abandoned in April 1982. While in prison awaiting his sentencing, Be'eri undertook a hunger strike in November 1984.{{Cite news |date=1984-11-02 |title=Alleged Jewish terrorists start hunger strike |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=JW19841102.2.11&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-------- |work=Northern Californian Jewish Bulletin |page=2 |volume=132 |issue=43 |agency=Jewish Telegraphic Agency}} He reached a plea bargain deal in March 1985. His three year sentence was commuted by Israeli President Chaim Herzog in December 1985.{{Cite web |date=1999-06-25 |title=Jewish Terrorists Try to Assassinate Three Palestinian Mayors |url=https://www.wrmea.org/1999-june/jewish-terrorists-try-to-assassinate-three-palestinian-mayors.html |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |publisher=American Educational Trust |language=en-gb}}

He has promoted the celebrating of Hannukah through the lens of modern Zionism, drawing parallels between the Macabees and the Jewish Underground.

= Education =

In 1978, he founded a Talmud Torah, a religious children's school, in Kiriyat Arba, a Jewish settlement near Hebron in the West Bank. At this school, Be'eri integrated general and Jewish subjects (with the exception of mathematics).{{Cite book |last1=Marty |first1=Martin E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ye7DYE39tf8C&dq=%22Dan+Be'eri%22&pg=PA403 |title=Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education |last2=Appleby |first2=R. Scott |date=1997-01-05 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-50881-8 |language=en}}

Be'eri has criticized the traditional model of yeshiva learning, believing it to no longer be necessary in the modern state of Israel.

He is a member of the advisory board of AlHatorah.org.{{Cite web |title=Who We Are |url=https://alhatorah.org/About:Who_We_Are/en |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=alhatorah.org}}