Yehuda Barkan

Yehuda Barkan (formerly Yehuda Barkan/Barkan in variant transliteration; 29 March 1945 – 23 October 2020) was an Israeli actor, film producer, director and screenwriter, and one of the most recognizable figures in Israeli popular cinema. Across a career of more than five decades, he appeared in approximately forty films, created comedies and practical-joke films, worked in radio and television, and played characters that became part of Israel’s cultural vocabulary. His performances in Charlie and a Half, Hagiga B'Snuker and the Abba Ganuv trilogy connected humor with family life, social tensions and the everyday experience of Israeli society.

Barkan’s importance lies not only in the number of productions in which he appeared. He moved between stage, radio, cinema and television, and understood how to communicate directly with a broad audience. As a writer, director and producer, he helped shape the works in which he acted. In his later years he also created and broadcast for religious and ultra-Orthodox audiences, linking different cultural worlds within Israel.

Early life, military service and the stage

Barkan was born in Netanya as Yehuda Ezekiel Berkowitz. His father was born in Poland and his mother in Czechoslovakia; both immigrated to Mandatory Palestine before the Second World War. He studied at the Bialik and ORT schools in Netanya and belonged to the Maccabi Hatzair youth movement. During his military service, he served in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps and in the Northern Command Band.

After completing his service, he joined the Dizengoff Command Band, a civilian ensemble modeled on Israel’s military entertainment groups. Its members included veterans of military bands such as Shashi Keshet, Tzila Dagan and Aryeh Moskona. The experience gave Barkan a foundation in stage performance, comic timing and direct audience communication. In 1967 he also appeared in Samuel Beckett’s Beckett, or the Honour of God at Habima Theatre, alongside Oded Teomi and Misha Asherov.

From radio sketches to Israeli cinema

In the early 1970s, Barkan participated in the popular radio program Hamim VeTaim, edited and hosted by Gadi Livneh. Its “Little Prank Corner” featured Barkan, Moshe Timor, Shlomo Bar-Aba and others making live telephone pranks. The format became the starting point for Barkan’s later film work. He recognized that a prank could be more than a short radio sketch: it could become a complete entertainment form combining planning, performance, improvisation and the unpredictable reactions of ordinary people.

Barkan established himself in the Israeli cinema of the 1960s and 1970s as a charismatic and versatile actor. His early credits included He Walked Through the Fields (1967), Lupo! and The Big Break (1970), The Highway Queen and Katz and Karasso (1971), and Two Heartbeats and Escape to the Sun (1972). He worked with leading filmmakers including Menachem Golan, Yosef Milo and Boaz Davidson, participating in the growth of an Israeli film industry seeking to tell local stories for local audiences.

Popular comedy and unforgettable characters

In 1974 Barkan played Charlie Ben Hanania in Charlie and a Half. The following year he played both Gavri and Azriel Levy, twin brothers with contrasting personalities, in Hagiga B'Snuker. Both films became landmarks of Israeli “bourekas” cinema: popular comedies that addressed social tensions, family relationships, status and economic ambition through accessible humor and vivid characters.

The lasting power of these films comes partly from their cultural familiarity. They presented a recognizably Israeli world of schemes, arguments, family loyalties and aspirations, and their characters became part of popular memory. The films continued to reach new viewers long after their original theatrical runs, helping preserve a shared repertoire of Israeli comedy.

Barkan continued to appear in films including Lupo in New York, Let’s Blow a Million and A Millionaire in Trouble. In 1985 he starred in, co-wrote, directed and produced Kompot Na'alyim. This range of responsibilities reflected his broader contribution: he was not simply an actor receiving a role, but a creator involved in developing ideas, shaping productions and determining how stories reached the screen.

Prank films and a distinctly Israeli entertainment form

During the 1980s, Barkan transformed the radio prank into a successful cinematic format. Often working with Yigal Shilon, he wrote and directed Hayeh, Ahaltah Otah (1980), The Big Prank (1984), Nipagesh Basivuv (1986), Nipagesh Bachof (1987), Matzlema Bli Busha (1988) and Ma'am, Open, It's Me (1992). In 1989 he directed Nipagesh Basafari, filmed in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and appeared in Oklim Lukshim.

These films combined advance planning with spontaneous reactions. A street, shop, telephone call or vacation setting became a comic stage. Barkan developed a style based on surprise, speed, improvisation and close contact with the public. The films helped move local humor from theater and radio into cinema and public space, and contributed to the development of Israeli popular entertainment as commercial television and mass media expanded.

In the early 1980s he also hosted the television game show Tza Mizeh. In 1994, shortly after the launch of Israel’s commercial Channel 2, he hosted the practical-joke program Lo Dofkim Cheshbon on Keshet. These projects placed him among the entertainers who helped define the language of Israel’s new commercial television culture.

Family drama and the Abba Ganuv trilogy

In 1987 Barkan began playing Yitzhak “Chico” Ben-David in Abba Ganuv. The trilogy—Abba Ganuv (1987), Abba Ganuv 2 (1989) and Abba Ganuv 3 (1991)—centered on a father, a child and the struggle to preserve family bonds and responsibility in a complicated reality. Barkan carried the leading role across all three films and contributed the story idea for the second installment.

The trilogy’s appeal went beyond comedy. It presented a determined yet vulnerable Israeli father and brought questions of parenthood, separation, loyalty and family responsibility into popular cinema. Barkan’s ability to move from broad humor to emotional performance helped give the films an enduring place in Israeli memory. He also wrote and acted in Neshika Bametzach (1990), and in 1993 produced and starred in Looking for a Husband on Four Legs.

Television, later films and a continuing connection with audiences

Barkan remained active after his greatest commercial successes. He appeared in the documentary-style film Watch Out, Camera (2003), the drama series Love in Autumn (2004), the series Another Family and a Half (2009), and the acclaimed drama series Yellow Peppers, in which he played Meir Rotenberg between 2010 and 2014. In 2011 he appeared as a snooker commentator in an episode of Naor’s Friends that paid tribute to Hagiga B'Snuker, demonstrating the film’s continuing place in Israeli popular culture.

His later screen work included the short film Whose Shoes Are These? (2001), A Diamond Giant on a Rat’s Neck (2013), Tales of Rabbi Nachman (2015) and Love in Suspenders (2019), in which he played the lead alongside Nitzah Shaul. In 2017 he appeared in the drama series Iron Dome as the head of the Vizhnitz yeshiva. He also took supporting roles in productions for the Meir Channel, including Dream Patrol and Golden Feathers.

A new chapter in religious culture

Beginning in the 1990s, Barkan gradually moved closer to religious observance and, in the early 2000s, underwent a process of becoming a baal teshuva. He moved with his family to the religious moshav of Beit Gamliel and began creating for religious and ultra-Orthodox audiences. He appeared in films including A Child’s Courage and Every Jew Is Gold, and toured in the program From Abba Ganuv to Abba in Heaven, in which he spoke about his personal transformation.

He also hosted Chachamim BaLayla, a weekly program about the weekly Torah portion and listeners’ questions. It was broadcast first on Radio Kol Chai and later on Radio Kol Barama until 2015. This stage of his career did not erase his earlier popular identity; it added another dimension to it. A creator associated with Israeli cinema and broad comedy used his media experience to communicate with religious audiences about faith, tradition and personal change.

Yehuda Barkan’s lasting influence

Barkan received the Ophir Award for lifetime achievement from the Israeli Academy of Film and Television. He died on 23 October 2020 at Hadassah Hospital after contracting COVID-19. He left behind a body of work spanning cinema, television, radio and stage. His final appearance was an interview on Meeting with Roni Kuban, broadcast after his death and dedicated to his memory.

His influence can be understood through three connected roles. First, he was an actor who gave recognizable faces and voices to popular, comic and vulnerable Israeli characters. Second, he was a writer, director and producer who helped establish prank films and local comedy as successful forms of mass entertainment. Third, he was a communicator able to move between secular entertainment, popular culture and religious creativity, maintaining a relationship with audiences across social and cultural boundaries.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Yehuda Barkan merits inclusion in the archive because his work documents and shaped a central chapter of Israeli culture. Through Charlie and a Half, Hagiga B'Snuker, Abba Ganuv and his prank films, he transformed everyday Israeli types, conflicts and aspirations into stories remembered by several generations.

His significance is not limited to his filmography. Barkan worked as an actor, writer, director, producer, host and broadcaster, building bridges among cinema, radio, television and diverse Israeli communities. A profile in Moreshet and on Moreshet.com helps preserve that wider meaning: popular entertainment can reflect a society, create shared memory and shape the cultural language of an entire country.