Uri Zohar

Rabbi Uri Zohar (born Uri Djadek; November 4, 1935–June 2, 2022) was an Israeli actor, comedian, singer, screenwriter, television host, and film director who later became a rabbi and a prominent figure in Jewish outreach. His life connected two highly influential public worlds: the Tel Aviv cultural scene of the young State of Israel, where he helped shape modern Israeli entertainment and cinema, and the world of Torah, where he devoted his fame and communication skills to religious education and the guidance of people returning to Jewish observance.

Zohar’s importance lies not only in the dramatic change of direction he made. He helped create the language of Israeli popular culture in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s; directed films that observed Israeli society with humor, intimacy, and self-criticism; and left behind works that remain part of the country’s cultural memory. His later religious career made him one of Israel’s best-known ba’alei teshuva—people who return to religious observance—and gave his personal transformation a broad significance in Jewish and Israeli life.

From the Army Entertainment Troupe to the Center of Israeli Culture

Zohar was born in Tel Aviv to parents who had immigrated from Poland. During his military service in the mid-1950s, he was noticed by Ari Herzberg, commander of the Nahal entertainment troupe, while serving time in a military prison, and was brought into the troupe. There he worked with Haim Topol and Avraham Hefer, who would later become important collaborators in Israeli cinema.

After his army service, Zohar was among the founders of the Batzal Yarok troupe. Its first program, “Kbisat HaResh” (1958), was an immediate success, and the troupe became one of the defining stage ensembles of Israel’s early cultural life. Zohar later established the production office Teatron HaAm with Avraham Deshe (Pashanel), performed with Shaike Ophir, appeared in musical revues at Jaffa’s Hamam club, and hosted reflective radio programs.

His solo performances relied heavily on improvisation and direct engagement with the audience, making him one of the pioneers of Israeli stand-up comedy. When Israeli television began broadcasting, he became a prominent host and creator. He directed and appeared in the “Lool” programs, hosted the quiz show “That Is My Secret,” and presented public events including beauty-pageant ceremonies and the 1977 celebration of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s European basketball triumph.

He also recorded songs that became classics of Hebrew popular music, including “The Patents Song” and “Freedom at the Health Resort,” which he performed with his then-wife, singer Ilana Rovina. His recurring stage question, “Am I beautiful?”, became one of the signatures of his public persona.

A Major Voice in the New Israeli Cinema

Film became the central artistic field of Zohar’s career. In 1962 he worked with filmmaker Nathan Axelrod and director Joel Silberg on the documentary “Etz O Palestina” (“Tree or Palestine”). Based on Axelrod’s “Carmel Journal” and narrated by Haim Topol, the film portrayed life in the Yishuv from the early 1930s through the establishment of the State of Israel. It connected cinema with the preservation of the memory of the Jewish community in pre-state Palestine.

Zohar’s first feature film, “Hole in the Moon” (1964), is regarded as a foundational work of the New Sensibility movement in Israeli cinema. It follows new immigrants who create an imaginary cinematic city in the Negev. Rather than presenting a single official national story, the film approached Israeli identity through fantasy, absurdity, and the struggle to create a home. Its screening at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival’s International Critics’ Week helped draw international attention to Israeli filmmaking.

In 1967 he directed “Three Days and a Child,” an adaptation of a novella by A. B. Yehoshua. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix at Cannes, while its leading actor, Oded Kotler, won the festival’s Best Actor award. Zohar followed it with “Every Bastard a King” (1968), a major critical and commercial success that attracted an estimated 743,000 viewers and became one of the most successful box-office films in Israeli cinema.

He also directed “Moshe Ventilator,” “Our Neighborhood,” “The Uplift,” and “The Rooster,” and was involved in the international production “Bloomfield.” His films examined everyday Israeli life, masculinity, relations between men and women, military experience, and the tension between the ideals of Israeli life and the vulnerabilities of actual human beings.

Lool and the Making of a Tel Aviv Cultural Memory

In the late 1960s, Zohar and his close friend Arik Einstein gathered a group of artists and bohemian figures known as the Lool group. Zohar was one of its central creative forces, directing, writing, acting, and creating a format in which music, sketches, cinema, and satire could exist together. The Lool programs became a reservoir of characters, catchphrases, and situations that entered the Israeli cultural vocabulary.

The sketch “The Bible Quiz,” for example, produced expressions that became widely repeated, including “Your time is up!” and “The next contestant!” In “La Marmore, by Perlash,” a television audience expecting a soccer match is confronted with opera, creating a comic clash between popular expectations and high culture. Other sketches portrayed tensions between immigrant groups and the way established Israelis treated those who arrived after them.

Zohar and Einstein’s collaboration continued in Zohar’s Tel Aviv trilogy: “Metzitzim” (“Peeping Toms,” 1972), “Big Eyes” (1974), and “Save the Lifeguard” (1977). These films portrayed beach life, leisure, and the bohemian culture of Tel Aviv while also exposing the costs of hedonism and the distance between self-image and reality. “Big Eyes,” based on a screenplay by Yaakov Shabtai, functioned in part as an artistic and personal self-portrait. “Save the Lifeguard,” made when Zohar had already begun wearing a skullcap, was his final mainstream feature.

These films and sketches are more than objects of nostalgia. They preserve a portrait of Israeli society in the 1960s and 1970s: a young, layered society shaped by military service, immigration, Western cultural influences, and the effort to build a distinct local identity.

A Spiritual Turning Point

In 1977, following a process that began after he met Rabbi Yitzhak Shlomo Zilberman, Zohar withdrew from entertainment. On August 9, 1977, he appeared on the television program “That Is My Secret” wearing a skullcap with his ritual fringes visible, publicly revealing the transformation he had undergone. He then studied at Ohr Somayach, Aderet Eliyahu, and Aish HaTorah yeshivas, and later delivered Torah lessons.

The change attracted extraordinary attention because Zohar was one of Israel’s most recognizable public figures. In 1976 he had been selected to receive the Israel Prize for Cinema but declined it. His move from film star and television host to ultra-Orthodox rabbi became a public story that continued to interest Israeli society for decades. It was reflected in books, songs, television fiction, and the documentary “Uri Zohar: The Return” (2018), in which he returned to the camera to discuss his life, his filmmaking, and the tension between cinema and Torah study.

He did not simply abandon his professional experience. Zohar directed election broadcasts for the Shas party, hosted radio and television programs, and presented an entertainment and interview program on Israel’s Channel One from 1997 to 1999. In 2003 he joined Ika Israeli and Popik Arnon in founding the Shelter Gallery for art.

Rabbi, Educator, and Outreach Leader

For most of his later life, Zohar devoted himself to Torah study and to guiding people who wished to draw closer to Judaism. He lectured, recorded telephone broadcasts about religious return, hosted radio and television programs, and headed the editorial system of Lev L’Achim, an organization that encouraged families from traditional backgrounds to enroll children in ultra-Orthodox schools. He also founded the Ma’ane organization for people returning to religious observance.

His work made the subject of religious return visible far beyond the religious community. Zohar brought to outreach the skills of a performer, the experience of speaking to large audiences, and an intimate knowledge of secular Israeli culture. In this way he became a bridge—although not an uncomplicated one—between secular Israelis and the institutions, language, and practices of the ultra-Orthodox world.

Zohar was also among the founders of the settlement of Ma’ale Amos and managed its community for several years. This gave his later public work a practical communal dimension: he was involved not only in lectures and broadcasts, but also in building a community and participating in the life of a religious settlement.

Family, Collaboration, and a Legacy Beyond the Screen

Zohar was married to singer Ilana Rovina for approximately two years in the early 1960s. He later married actress Elia Shuster, who appeared in “Big Eyes.” The couple first lived in Jaffa and, after Zohar’s return to religious observance, moved to Jerusalem. They had seven children. The family continued to embody the meeting of different cultural and spiritual worlds: one of Zohar’s sons initiated “Looking Inside,” a series in which father and son discussed faith, values, and reconciliation between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews.

His friendship with Arik Einstein was central to both his creative life and his family history. Two of Zohar’s sons married Einstein’s daughters, and the wedding of his son Ephraim Fishel to Shiri Einstein was documented in Renen Schorr’s short film “A Wedding in Jerusalem” (1985). These connections showed how artistic partnerships, family ties, and religious journeys can continue shaping Israeli memory long after the original works have been created.

Uri Zohar died in Jerusalem on June 2, 2022, at the age of 86, after suffering a heart attack. His films remain part of the Israeli cinematic repertoire, and his life continues to interest film scholars, cultural figures, educators, and both religious and secular Israelis. Retrospectives at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris and Israeli cinematheques, together with the 2018 documentary, demonstrate that his legacy is considered both an artistic achievement and a significant cultural and spiritual phenomenon.

Why Uri Zohar’s legacy belongs in Moreshet

Uri Zohar merits inclusion in Moreshet because he shaped two spheres central to the life of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. In cinema, television, and entertainment, he helped create a local Israeli language: his films recorded the emerging society and the atmosphere of Tel Aviv, Lool turned everyday experience into popular classics, and works such as “Hole in the Moon” and “Three Days and a Child” expanded the artistic possibilities of Israeli cinema.

In the second half of his life, he influenced many people through teaching, broadcasting, communal activity, and Jewish outreach organizations. His move from the stage to the study hall became a public event of lasting significance because it showed how a famous cultural figure could turn his life story into an instrument of education, faith, and community building. Zohar’s legacy is therefore both artistic and Jewish: it preserves the story of Israeli cinema, illuminates the meeting between secular and religious identities, and records one person’s capacity to change direction and influence his surroundings anew. These achievements make him a natural subject for Moreshet, and especially for Moreshet.com, an archive devoted to the people and works that have shaped Jewish heritage and Israeli life.