Rav Hanan Porat Passes Away

Rabbi, former MK, and settlement leader Hanan Porat has passed away at age 68.

Rav Hanan Porat passed away Tuesday after a long and difficult battle with illness. He was 68 years old.

Rav Porat was among the leaders of the Jewish return to Gush Etzion after the Six Day War. He was among the founders of Gush Emunim, which led Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria after the Yom Kippur War.

At the same time, he taught in several yeshivas, including Yeshivat Har Etzion, Yeshivat Hakibbutz Hadati in Ein Tzurim, and the Beit Orot yeshiva in Jeursalem

He established the Techiya Knesset faction along with Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, Geula Cohen and Elyakim Haetzni, and served in the tenth Knesset. He later joined the National Religious Party (Mafdal) and was elected through that party to serve in subsequent Knessets, in which he held a variety of roles, including head of the Knesset's Constitution and Law Committee.

Earlier this year Rav Porat gave an interview in which he spoke about his wartime experiences, his ideology, and his illness. He told interviewer Yinon Magal, "I don't believe that life ends with death. It undergoes a change."