Hanan Porat, Jewish Settlement Leader, Dies at 67

JERUSALEM — Hanan Porat, who helped turn Israel’s religious settler movement into a powerful force through the establishment of Jewish communities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, died on Tuesday at his childhood kibbutz, which he had re-established. He was 67.

In a statement confirming his death, of cancer, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Mr. Porat had “dedicated his life to building up the land of Israel, and to educating generations of students about religious Zionism and loving the land of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Mr. Porat, who was a rabbi, faded from the public spotlight in recent years as he sought treatment for cancer. But in his prime, in the 1970s and ’80s, when the Israeli right began its political ascent, he was a fiery advocate of hard-line Zionism, cutting a handsome figure with a mane of thick dark hair topped by a knitted yarmulke....