Gilad Erdan

Gilad Erdan was born in 1970 in Ashkelon

Gilad Erdan was born in Ashkelon on 30 September 1970 and grew up there. His mother, born in Hungary, was a psychologist, and his father, born in Romania, was a teacher who became a lawyer. He attended the Netiv Meir yeshiva high school in Jerusalem.

He served as an officer in the IDF Adjutant Corps and left with the rank of captain. He then studied law at Bar-Ilan University, where he protested against the Oslo Accords, and became a lawyer in 1996. He later earned a master's degree in political science from Tel Aviv University.

He worked as a political adviser to Ariel Sharon and then as an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 1998 he became chairman of Young Likud. He entered the Knesset in 2003 and opposed the Gaza disengagement plan.

From 2009 he served as Minister of Environmental Protection, and later as Minister of Communications, Home Front Defense and the Interior. From 2015 to 2020 he was Minister of Public Security and of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. In that role he led a policy of partial cannabis decriminalization in 2018.

He later served as Ambassador to the United States and as Permanent Representative to the UN from 2020 to 2024. He is married with 4 children and lives in Kiryat Ono.