Yosef Dayan (born Mexico in 1945) is a rabbi and the author of several books in Hebrew, Spanish and Italian. He also worked to translate modern Spanish literature into Hebrew.
Yosef Dayan emigrated to Israel in 1968 and became a member of the right wing Kach movement. Some Jewish genealogists consider him to be a patrilinear descendant of King David and thus a "prince" or Nassi of the ancient Davidic royal line. Yosef Dayan is the founder of "Malchut Israel", a right wing royalist political group in Israel advocating a return of the monarchy. In 2004 he became a member of the newly reconstituted Sanhedrin, a duplicate of the religious tribunal which convened during the time of the Second Temple, a group that had traditionally had seventy one members. He has also achieved certain notoriety for his alleged central participation in so-called "death curse" ceremonies or Pulsa diNura aimed at Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon. These curses were presumably to request divine retribution after those former Prime Ministers advocated Israeli withdrawal from certain areas considered by some as inalienable parts of the promised land. Incidentally, Yitzhak Rabin was murdered soon after the first curse and Ariel Sharon left in a persistent vegetative state after a brain haemorrhage following the second. He is also known to have supported Baruch Goldstein's (a fellow Meir Kahane disciple) terrorist actions in the Cave of the Patriarch's Massacre.
His son Hananel Dayan-Meged is notorious for his refusal to shake the hand of Dan Halutz, the (former) Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Force, while receiving the "President of Israel excellence citation" during the Israeli Independence Day celebrations.