Benny Beit Or

Benny Beit Or was born in 1942 in Kfar Saba

Benny Beit Or was born in Kfar Saba on November 16, 1942. His parents, Baruch and Pnina, were members of the Labor Battalion, and his uncle was Haim Shelly. He was once a member of Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra.

He studied engineering at the Technion. He joined the IDF through Nahal, moved to the Paratroopers and became a platoon commander. As a reservist he fought in the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War.

In 1978 he joined the General Staff research and development unit, and in 1981 he retrained for the Armored Corps. In the Lebanon War he commanded Tank Battalion 433 and was badly wounded, then returned to lead it 21 days later. He later founded Formation 214, which set up the Moran, Meitar and Maglan units, and in 1989 to 1990 he was military attaché in the United States.

After retiring he managed defense technology companies and worked on restoring struggling firms. In 2003 he founded the NeSheR association for youth at risk. In 2013 he joined Shalom Ben Moshe's list and became senior deputy and acting mayor of Rosh HaAyin.