Public lifeשייקה דן

Isaiah Sheyke Dan Trachtenberg

Shaike Dan was one of the Jewish parachutists from Mandate Palestine sent to Nazi-held Europe and a founder of Nativ, known for organizing Jewish emigration from Romania.

1909 to 1994Parachutist mission to RomaniaCo-founding NativEmigration of Romanian Jews

Born: 15 November 1909, Lipcani
Died: 2 March 1994, Tel Aviv
Occupation: State Security Informant, politician, activist, Aliyah Bet

Isaiah Sheyke Dan Trachtenberg was born in 1909 in Lipcani

Shaike Dan was born Yeshayahu Trachtenberg in Lipcani, Bessarabia, to Chaim and Rebecca Trachtenberg. He was the third of 4 children and played on the town's Jewish soccer team. As a teenager he joined the Maccabi movement and became an organizer in it.

He immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1935. He went back to Romania and then to Czechoslovakia to work with Maccabi Youth. After returning, he settled in kibbutz Nir Haim.

In 1944 he was parachuted into Romania with Yitzhak Ben-Efraim to help rescue Allied pilots and Jews. From January 1947 he worked with the Bricha to bring Bulgarian Jews to Israel. After the state was founded he was sent to Yugoslavia for the same purpose.

In the 1950s he was one of the founders of Nativ and worked from Vienna to bring Jews out of Eastern Europe. From 1958 he represented the Israeli government in talks with Romania on Jewish emigration, carrying cash payments for it. More than 100,000 Jews moved from Romania to Israel through this channel.

He received the Yigal Allon Prize and died in 1994. Streets in Rishon LeZion and Tel Aviv are named after him.