Matityahu HaCohen Dan, a kohen by ancestry and an idealistic IDF veteran who served as a young soldier during the Six-Day War (1967), is the chairman and founder of Ateret Cohanim (also known as Ateret Yerushalayim), an organization dedicated to Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. A product of Yeshivat Hesder Ramat HaGolan, he began efforts in 1977 to reclaim Jewish properties and strengthen the Jewish presence in Jerusalem's Old City, leading to the organization's formal establishment around 1978. Dan has been involved in controversies, including 2018 audio recordings published by Haaretz capturing discussions of using prostitutes, threats, fake identities, and straw buyers to acquire Palestinian-owned properties in East Jerusalem; legal complaints from Truah rabbis alleging involvement in prostitution and extortion; disputes over properties leased from churches like the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Patriarchate using offshore entities in the British Virgin Islands; and criticism for aggressive settlement expansion in the Muslim Quarter, Silwan, and other Arab areas of East Jerusalem.