Gadi Yevarkan

Gadi Yevarkan was born in 1985 in Semien Province

Desta "Gadi" Yevarkan was born in a Jewish village in Semien, in Ethiopia. His mother sat on the village council and his father was a public servant. In 1991 the family came to Israel in Operation Solomon and lived in Tiberias, then at a caravan site in kibbutz Hulda.

He studied at the Mikveh Israel boarding school and finished high school at 16. He then worked as a youth tutor in Rehovot. After the army he earned a law degree at the College of Management.

He served in the reconnaissance unit of the Givati Brigade and completed officers' course. He served there as a commander.

In 2006 he co-founded an activist group for Ethiopian Jews with Pnina Tamano-Shata. He ran unsuccessfully in Likud primaries in 2008 and 2012 and headed a list in Rehovot's 2013 municipal election. In 2016 he became head of the Be'eri pre-military academy, and left in 2017 after claims about its funding.

In 2019 he entered the Knesset for Telem within Blue and White. In 2020 he moved to Likud, resigned his seat, and after the election became Deputy Minister of Public Security. He lost his seat in 2022, and in July 2026 left Likud to found the Beit Yisrael party.