Dan Tolkovsky

Dan Tolkovsky was born in 1921 in Tel Aviv

Dan Tolkovsky was born in Tel Aviv on 17 January 1921 to Shmuel and Chana Tolkovsky. His mother was the daughter of Isaac Leib Goldberg. He studied at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium and joined the Haganah in 1936.

In 1938 he moved to London to study at Imperial College. He graduated in mechanical engineering in 1941.

In 1942 he joined the Royal Air Force and flew Spitfires in Italy, southern France and Greece during World War II. After the war he worked in Britain as an engineer and secretly helped buy aircraft for the Haganah. He returned in 1948, flew bombing missions in the 1948 war, and later commanded the Israeli Air Force, which received its first jet fighters and fought in the 1956 Sinai war.

After leaving the military he joined Discount Bank Investment Corporation and became its managing director. He helped Uzia Galil found Elron in 1962 and backed Elscint. In 1985 he founded Athena with his son Gideon and Frederick Adler.

He served on public bodies, including the Ciechanover Commission in 1997. He received the Presidential Medal of Honor in 2023 and died on 28 November 2025.