Yossi Pollak

Yossi Pollak was born Yosef Pollak on 12 May 1945. His parents divorced and decided not to raise him. He was sent to religious relatives in Rehovot and later moved among boarding schools, institutions and kibbutzim, a childhood he later described as restless and institutionally shaped.

He first encountered the stage at Hadassim Youth Village, where he acted as a teenager before being expelled for wild behaviour. That early mix of talent and defiance foreshadowed both his career and his public persona. As a young man he enrolled at Beit Zvi, Israel's leading drama school in Ramat Gan, and graduated into the professional theatre circuit around 1968.

The unsettled childhood and the Beit Zvi training together formed the raw material of his later stage work: a capacity for intensity, a distrust of polite authority, and a hunger for roles that asked for moral and physical risk.

Pollak's theatre career made him a fixture of Israel's major companies. At Habima he appeared in Nissim Aloni's Aunt Liza and The Gypsies of Jaffa, as well as The Father, Of Mice and Men, Othello, Uncle Vanya, The Sunset and Doctor Faustus. At Bimot he played in Napoleon - Alive or Dead. At the Cameri he took classical and contemporary roles including A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Hanoch Levin's Execution, The American Princess, The Gigolo from Congo, The Golem, House Husband, Oh God and King Lear. Haifa Theatre saw him in Strider and Bent; Beit Lessin in Copper, All My Sons and I'm Not Rappaport, which brought him the Theatre Academy Actor of the Year award.

As a director he staged Beckett's Endgame, Orphans, Robinson Crusoe, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men and Pinter's The Caretaker, often working with the same companies that had featured him as an actor. Critics sometimes questioned his directorial choices while praising the force of his acting.

On screen he worked steadily from the early 1970s: Half Half, Azit the Paratrooper Dog, The House on Chelouche Street, The Silver Platter, The Thousand Wives of Naftali Siman Tov, Must Be Happy, Outbreak X and A Place in Heaven. Television audiences later knew him as Ephraim in Nevalot beside Yehoram Gaon, and as the voice of Zulgar in Shuf Al HaPartzuf. Around 2013 he withdrew from acting, saying he had already fulfilled his dreams.

Yossi Pollak died on 11 September 2026, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, at the age of 81. Israeli outlets including Mako, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, N12 and i24NEWS reported the death the following day. No cause of death was made public.

Habima said the national theatre bowed its head and mourned "one of the leading actors of the theatre who left a mark on the world of culture in Israel," praising his exceptional stage presence, depth, sensitivity and love of theatre. The Cameri called him one of the great actors who conquered stage and screen with charisma and talent, listing unforgettable roles including The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, Execution, The Gigolo from Congo, The Golem, House Husband and King Lear, and noting his direction of Pinter's The Caretaker.

Pollak was married twice. His second wife, Tami, is the daughter of Nimrod Eshel; they had two sons, Jonathan Pollak and Shaul Pollak. From an earlier marriage he had three children: Shay Carmeli-Pollak, a filmmaker and screenwriter who has won an Ophir Award; Avshalom Pollak, an actor and dancer; and Omer Pollak.

Several of his sons became public figures in activism and the arts. Jonathan Pollak is known as a co-founder of Anarchists Against the Wall. The family's political visibility sometimes amplified public attention already focused on Pollak's own outspoken views.

He lived and worked mainly in Israel's theatre cities, especially Tel Aviv's Habima and Cameri orbit, with significant periods connected to Haifa Theatre and Beit Lessin.

Pollak was widely identified with Israel's radical left. He criticised the Israeli establishment, the IDF and government policy in interviews and public remarks over many years. After his death, a Tel Aviv newspaper quotation in which he described those who drop one-ton bombs on civilians as terrorists circulated widely on social media.

His politics were not a late add-on to a quiet career; they were part of how colleagues and audiences understood him: as an artist who treated the stage as a place for moral argument as well as craft. Family members, especially some of his sons, were also known for activism against Israeli government policy, which kept the household name linked to protest as well as performance.

In 1985, during Habima's Robinson Crusoe, which Pollak directed and acted in, he physically confronted Haaretz theatre critic Michael Handelzalts in the auditorium after a verbal exchange. Handelzalts later wrote that the encounter began with words and ended in bodily contact "on the border of violence," and that both men thereafter treated it as a closed chapter while acknowledging it had happened. The episode remained part of Pollak's public legend.

His political language also drew criticism from opponents who saw his attacks on the army and government as extreme. Supporters saw the same bluntness as consistency with an artist who refused to separate conscience from craft. The 1985 critic confrontation and his radical left commentary are the two controversies most often attached to his name in Israeli cultural memory.

Israeli theatres and critics ranked Pollak among the major stage actors of his generation. Habima and the Cameri both framed his death as the loss of a creator who left a durable stamp on Israeli culture. Roles such as Othello, King Lear, the lead in I'm Not Rappaport, Max in Bent, and Ephraim in Nevalot became touchstones for younger performers.

He also modeled a path from actor to director inside Israel's repertory system, staging Beckett, Shakespeare, Steinbeck and Pinter for the same audiences who had watched him perform. The combination of classical ambition, modern Israeli repertoire, film and television reach, and an uncompromising public voice made him a complete, if sometimes difficult, figure in late-twentieth-century Israeli theatre.

His children continue careers in film, dance, acting and activism, extending the Pollak name across art and public life.

Pollak's most cited honour is the Israeli Theatre Academy Actor of the Year award for his performance in I'm Not Rappaport at Beit Lessin. Contemporary obituaries and Habima archival notes repeatedly name that prize as the formal peak of his stage recognition.

Beyond trophies, recognition came through casting: Shakespearean leads at Habima and the Cameri, Levin and Aloni premieres, and late-career television work opposite Yehoram Gaon. After his death, national and municipal theatres treated his career as part of the canon of modern Israeli acting.