Luis Dagan

Luis Dagan was born in 1941 in Buenos Aires

Luis (Arie) Dagan was born in Buenos Aires to Miriam and Eliezer Fishman, who came from Łódź, Poland. The family immigrated to Israel in 1950 and lived in the Sha'ar Aliya transit camp near Haifa, then in Tel Aviv, and finally in Rishon LeZion.

He attended the Shevach vocational high school in Tel Aviv. In 1956 he went on to the Air Force technical school in Haifa and worked for a few months as an aircraft mechanic at Israel Aerospace Industries.

In 1964 he moved to Eilat, trained as a tour guide and led tourists to Sinai. From 1971 to 1985 he worked as an independent contractor in public building, including dome-built schools and kindergartens. In 1979 he conceived the Eilat Free Trade Zone, and the law creating it passed the Knesset in 1985.

In 1982 he founded the Amdar company and built the Amdar neighborhood in Eilat. He also initiated the first mall in Eilat and the Eilat for Eilat tourism group. In 2005 he started a school program in practical life skills.

After falling ill in 2012, he donated 30 scholarships to Arab and Jewish nursing students at Rabin Medical Center. He is married to the poet Nili Dagan and has 4 children.