David Barnea
David Barnea · Heroes of Israel
Sayeret Matkal officer who joined the Mossad in 1996, headed its Tzomet division (2013-2019) and served as the 13th director of the Mossad from June 2021 to June 2026; grandson of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.
29 March 1965, Ashkelon, Israel
Ashkelon · Rishon LeZion · Tel Aviv · New York
David Barnea is recognized among Israeli contributors to Heroes of Israel — Sayeret Matkal officer who joined the Mossad in 1996, headed its Tzomet division (2013-2019) and served as the 13th director of the Mossad from June 2021 to June 2026; grandson of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.
Origins and early life
David Barnea, known as Dadi, was born in Ashkelon on 29 March 1965 and grew up in Rishon LeZion, in what his brother has described as a secular family. His grandfather, Yehuda Brunner, fled Germany with his young family in 1933 and settled in Bnei Brak, where his father, Yosef, three years old on arrival, studied at a religious Zionist yeshiva before joining the Palmach at sixteen and rising to lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army.
His mother, Naomi, a teacher and later a school principal, was born aboard the Patria, a ship carrying clandestine Jewish immigrants to Mandatory Palestine.
Work and career
As a teenager he entered the military boarding school for command in Tel Aviv, then enlisted in 1983 and served as a fighter and commander in Sayeret Matkal, the General Staff reconnaissance unit. He went on to study business in New York, with a bachelor's degree from the New York Institute of Technology and an MBA from Pace University, and worked in investment banking in Israel. He joined the Mossad in 1996, served in its Tzomet division and headed it from 2013 to 2019, years in which the division received four Israel Security Prizes.
Appointed deputy head of the Mossad and chief of its operations directorate in 2019, he became its thirteenth director on 1 June 2021, succeeding Yossi Cohen. On 28 November 2023 he met the director of the CIA, William Burns, and the prime minister of Qatar for talks on extending the truce in Gaza and on the hostages held there. He handed over to Roman Gofman on 2 June 2026 after five years at the head of the agency, and in 2023 the Jerusalem Post had ranked him tenth among the fifty most influential Jews in the world.
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Source: Wikipedia — David Barnea ; ProPublica ; Mishpacha ; Ynet ; Times of Israel ; Jerusalem Post
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Sayeret Matkal officer who joined the Mossad in 1996, headed its Tzomet division (2013-2019) and served as the 13th director of the Mossad from June 2021 to June 2026; grandson of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.
Source: Wikipedia — David Barnea ; ProPublica ; Mishpacha ; Ynet ; Times of Israel ; Jerusalem Post
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