Eli Sadan

Eli Sadan was born in 1948 in Budapest

Eli Sadan was born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 13, 1948. His parents, Rivka and Shalom Erwin Sadan, were Holocaust survivors, and his father was held in Auschwitz and went through a death march. The family moved to Israel when he was one year old, first to a transit camp near Kfar Saba and later to Tel Aviv.

He grew up in Tel Aviv, attended Zeitlin High School and was a member of Bnei Akiva. In 1965 he studied for about 4 months at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. He joined the army in January 1966 and served as a paratrooper.

After his service he studied physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a year. He then moved to Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, where he studied under rabbis Zvi Yehuda Kook and Zvi Thau. At Rabbi Kook's request he helped found Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights and a Torah group in Eilat, and he worked for the release of Prisoners of Zion such as Natan Sharansky.

In 1988 he founded the Bnei David mechina in Eli with Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, to prepare religious young men for full army service. He also initiated Nachshon, the first mixed mechina, founded in 1997. In 2016 he received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

He has spoken publicly against secular and liberal values, and his statements have drawn criticism. He is married to Vardina and has 12 children.