Bar was born in a low-income neighborhood in
Safed the eldest of five children of a Moroccan immigrant father and an Ashkenazic mother. He has stated, "I am a proud half-Moroccan, half-Ashkenazi." Bar was a camper and camp counsellor at "HaNoar HaOved VeHeLomed" (
The Federation of Working and Studying Youth) in Safed, and was an active leader in Labor Youth. His father served as deputy mayor and secretary of the Workers' Council on behalf of the Labor Party. Bar studied at Bezek College at
Givat Mordechai in
Jerusalem. He served in the
Israeli Defense Force as an officer in
Adjutant Corps and reached the rank of captain in the reserves, later studying at the
Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. From 1998 he served as chairman of the student organization ("Ofek") of the Labor Party at Hebrew University, chairman of the national student organization of the Labor Party, and Chairman of the World Youth of the World Labour Zionist Movement. Bar served as an Advisor to Minister
Dalia Itzik in the
Environment Ministry and the
Ministry of Industry and Trade; an adviser to Acting Mayor of the Jerusalem Municipality, Professor
Shimon Shetreet; Director of Development Economics and Higher Education in the Jerusalem Municipality; Project Manager for the Jerusalem Conference with the Zionist Council for Israel; and adviser to National Infrastructure Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer in
Ariel Sharon's second administration and
Ehud Olmert's government. It was during this time that he also served as advisor to Ben-Eliezer while the latter served as
Minister of Industry. During his public service he completed his
BA in
political science and
international relations and
MA in international relations at the Hebrew University. In 2008 he was accepted to the master's program at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University, but passed on the opportunity in order to continue his public service. Since 2002, Bar has been a delegate at the
World Zionist Congress and the
World Zionist Council. He is actively involved in pro-Israel advocacy and has taken part in advocacy and coexistence missions around the world, in the course of which he met with
US President George W. Bush and other senior officials in both the Arab world and the West. In 2003, he was involved in the establishment of the “Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation” (YIFC), an organization whose activity was awarded a special prize by the EU's Minister of Education. In August 2008, he was elected as Chairman (Secretary) of the Labour Party in Jerusalem. On 11 November 2008 he was elected to the Jerusalem City Council on
Nir Barkat's Jerusalem Will Succeed list, and, up until his election to the Knesset, served as a Council member and executive board member, and held the portfolios of Tourism and Foreign Relations for the municipality. In 2010, Bar was elected Secretary General of the Labour Party, the youngest person ever to serve in that capacity, and the first to be elected to the post before serving as a Member of Knesset. Following
Ehud Barak's retirement as Labor Party chairman in order to establish his
Independence Party, the party unanimously re-elected Bar as Secretary General at a conference held on 27 March 2011. After Barak's departure, Bar played a crucial role in leading the rehabilitation of the Labor Party during the transitional period together with temporary chairman Micha Harish, up until the election of Shelly Yachimovich to the party leadership. In the party primaries prior to the 2013 Knesset elections, Bar won seventh place on the Labor Party's list (in his capacity as Secretary General of the party). As a result of Defense Minister
Amir Peretz's resignation (to join
Tzipi Livni's
Hatnua party), Bar moved up to sixth place on the list. He was elected in January 2013 to serve in Israel's Nineteenth Knesset. On 16 January 2019, before the elections to the 21st Knesset, he announced his retirement from political life. In these elections he was placed in the symbolic 105th place on the Labor list. Ahead of the elections to the 22nd Knesset elections that took place in September 2019, he was 11th on the Labor-Gesher list and was not elected to the Knesset. Ahead of the elections to the 23rd Knesset in March 2020, he was placed 20th on the Labor-Gesher-Meretz list and not elected. Bar did not run in the elections for the 24th Knesset in 2021. Bar lives in Jerusalem with his wife and has three children. ==Legislation==