Dan is a kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 in the northern part of the Hula Valley, at the foot of Mt. Hermon, in northern Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. It was founded in 1939, by settlers from Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

  and is a part of the Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

 movement. The population in 1947 was 340.

Dan was the second of the villages established in honour of Menachem Ussishkin. Water is from the Dan River

Dan River (Israel)

The Dan River is the largest tributary of the Jordan river, whose source is located at the base of Mount Hermon. The river is so named after the Israelite city of Dan, which was captured by the Tribe of Dan during the Judges period. The tribe of Dan conquered the city, then named Laish and then...

. Originally in Dan and its neighbor, Dafna cooperated in a joint venture of breeding trout.

According to a 1949 book by the Jewish National Fund

Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...

, the village suffered heavy losses in both men and material, "bearing the brunt" of the Syrian

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 invasion during 1948 Arab-Israeli war

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

, but leading an underground existence they held out "heroically".
The kibbutz is named after the Israelite town of "Dan" mentioned in 1 Kings 12:29, 1 Samuel 3:20 and Genesis 14:14, and which has been identified with nearby Tel Dan. It is also located in the territory of the Israelite tribe of Dan

Tribe of Dan

The Tribe of Dan, also sometimes spelled as "Dann", was one of the Tribes of Israel. Though known mostly from biblical sources, they were possibly descendants of the Denyen Sea Peoples who joined with Hebrews...

 (Joshua 19:47).

The kibbutz is the starting point of the Israel National Trail

Israel National Trail

The Israel National Trail, is a hiking path that crosses the entire country of Israel. Its northern end is at Dan, near the Lebanese border in the far north of the country, and it extends to Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea, a length of approximately 940 km...

.