Passig was born as David Ben-Harosh in
Meknes,
Morocco, to a
Jewish family. As a young child, his family immigrated to
France, where he spent his early childhood. When Passig was 11, the family moved to Israel. Passig holds both Portuguese and Israeli
nationalities. In 1982, at age 25, Passig fought in the
1982 Lebanon War, during which many soldiers in his unit died after it was caught in a
Syrian ambush and then accidentally attacked by Israeli
warplanes. A number of his friends were among the casualties. According to Passig, this caused him to begin thinking heavily about the future, as he wondered whether Israel was fated to constantly fight. When he returned from the army, Passig took a vacation in Europe at the urging of his father. While in
Brussels, he visited an exhibit on homes of the future and was intrigued by how the predictions were made. Although he was studying
psychology at the time, he decided to enroll in an Anticipatory Anthropology course at the
University of Minnesota. He received a PhD in Anticipatory Anthropology (
Futures Studies) in 1993. Passig, an
Orthodox Jew, is divorced with four children and lives in
Tel Aviv. He works as a Full Professor at the Faculty of Education at
Bar-Ilan University, where he heads the university's MA program in information communication technologies in education and its virtual reality laboratory. He also works as a consultant and has advised
Fortune 500 companies,
science fiction film producers, and some Israeli government institutions, including the
Ministry of Education,
Bank Hapoalim, and the
Israeli Air Force. He served as an adviser to the commissioner for future generations at the
Knesset and is a member of the Israeli National Committee for Research and Development. He is a co-founder of Thinkz Ltd, a
startup company developing Social IoT platforms and applications. ==Predictions==