Yisrael Poliakov

Yisrael Poliakov was born on July 7, 1941, in Jerusalem.[1][3] He grew up in Tel Aviv and attended Kfar Hayarok, an agricultural high school, where he had expected to build a future as a farmer.[4] His path changed when members of the Nahal Brigade's entertainment troupe attended a school party and noticed his talent; they encouraged him to audition for the troupe when he came of age to enlist.[3]

Poliakov enlisted in the Nahal in 1959, serving as an actor in its troupe and eventually becoming the troupe's commander in his final year of service.[7] The experience gave him his first sustained training in performance and introduced him to figures who would become his closest professional collaborators. It was during his Nahal service that he first met Gavriel "Gavri" Banai, who would later stand beside him as one of HaGashash HaHiver's three pillars.[3]

HaTarnegolim and the Road to HaGashash

In 1961, following his discharge, Poliakov helped establish HaTarnegolim (The Roosters), a troupe composed of graduates of IDF musical groups.[3][7] The ensemble was directed and conducted by Naomi Polani, who had agreed to manage the group after Poliakov, Yehoram Gaon, and Shike Levy approached her seeking guidance for a performance project they wanted to continue after their military service.[8][7] Polani rehearsed HaTarnegolim for a full year before its first public performance, waiting until she was satisfied that the troupe was ready to face an audience.[8] The group's schedule, once established, was relentless — performing more than forty times in a single month on some occasions — a pace that wore members down and led some to contemplate solo careers.[8]

HaTarnegolim disbanded in 1964.[7] Poliakov, Yeshayahu "Shaike" Levy, and Gavriel "Gavri" Banai then accepted producer Avraham "Pashanel" Deshe's proposal that they remain together as a new ensemble focused on comic sketches and songs.[9][10] During a tour abroad near the end of 1963, Pashanel had floated the idea, and the trio began working on material — including songs titled "Saper Li" and "Uzi Uzi" — before HaTarnegolim formally concluded.[10]

The Formation and Rise of HaGashash HaHiver

The trio that would become HaGashash HaHiver coalesced around Pashanel's concept and his insistence on a particular discipline: the three men would present themselves as a unit rather than as individual performers. Poliakov later described the producer's philosophy in his own words: "We exist as a group. It's not Shaike, Gavri, and Poli as separate actors." He credited that policy of always appearing together with keeping them "popular and down to earth," and noted that the three functioned as equal partners in the group's earnings rather than salaried employees.[10]

The trio's first program, Simhat Ziknati (sometimes rendered Simḥat Zekinti), opened on November 29, 1964, at the Senter HaKafol club in Jaffa.[10][3] The material was written and directed by actor-comedian Shaike Ophir. After a difficult start, the show gained an audience and ultimately ran for 380 performances.[10] Its success persuaded Poliakov, Levy, and Banai that the ensemble was worth sustaining as a long-term project.[9] A second major production, Tokhnit Dalet, followed in 1966, again featuring material by Ophir alongside songs written and arranged by Aryeh Levanon, some of which became hits.[9]

While the group had begun with musical performance at its center, the connective sketches and comic characters gradually became its defining element. At the 1969 Israel Song Festival, the trio entered with Mayim le-David ha-Melekh ("Water for King David"), performing in deliberately overly short biblical-style tunics for comic effect.[9] In the early 1970s, they drew on material by Yossi Banai — who also directed — and on sketches derived from Ephraim Kishon's work; their musical hits during this period included Naomi Shemer's Yesh Li Ḥag.[9] They later released an album of Shemer songs including Lu Yehi and Orḥim La-Kayiẓ, which sold well.[9]

Over the course of its decades of activity, the trio presented ten original entertainment programs.[3] Among them were Cinema Gashash, Cantata la-Shawarma, Cassius Clay vs. Halfon, Offside Story, Working on Us: Hebrew Labor, Cracker vs. Cracker, and Kosot Ruach.[1] In 1984, the trio contributed sketches to the Labor Party's political broadcasts for that year's general election, and some of that material became the basis for later productions, including the 1985 show For a Fistful of Dollars, directed by Motti Kirschenbaum.[9]

Poliakov as a Character Actor

Within the trio, Poliakov earned a reputation as an exceptionally versatile character actor whose transformations could render him unrecognizable even to people who knew his face. An anecdote he recounted himself illustrates the point: shopping at a market with Gavri Banai, he encountered a vendor who asked where Poliakov was — and even as Poliakov stood directly in front of him, refused to accept that the man before him could be the performer he admired.[2] Among his most memorable creations were the prison chief Aharon Lapa, Mr. Cracker, Abraham Adibi, Judge Pandelovitch, and Sergio Constanza from Givat Halfon Eina Ona.[2] His Romanian-accented portrayal of the contractor Klarscho became particularly associated with him.[4]

Film Work with HaGashash HaHiver

The trio's popularity extended into cinema. Poliakov appeared with Levy and Banai in Arvinka (1967), Givat Halfon Eina Ona (1975), Shlager (1979), and Krav al Hava'ad (1986).[5][11] In Givat Halfon Eina Ona, the three appeared under director Assi Dayan.[12] His filmography also included Mishpahat Simhon, Hashchuna Shelanu, and Va'ad Habayit.[7]

Solo Career After HaGashash

In 1990, Poliakov and his colleagues decided to pursue independent careers while continuing to work separately as actors and singers and periodically reuniting for new HaGashash material.[9] After the group's formal breakup, Poliakov developed a second distinct phase of his career as a mature dramatic actor in theater and television.[4][11]

He began acting in plays around 2000, with productions including God's Finger (Etzba Elohim), The Return of Morris Shpilman (Shuvo shel Morris Shpilman), The Israeli Family (Mishpahat Israeli), The Rubber Merchants (Socharei Gumi), and Mother Courage (Ema Courage).[4][7] He also worked as a director in his later years, directing entertainment shows for Gadi Yagil and Moti Giladi and for Hanna Laszlo.[7]

On television, his post-HaGashash work included appearances in Rechov Sumsum (Israel's version of Sesame Street), Achorei HaNews, the drama series BeTipul, and the television dramas Campaign, Gufa Baholot, and Mul Hay'arot.[4][7] His most personal late-career role came in the ten-episode series Hakol Dvash ("It's All Honey"), written by his daughter Yael Poliakov, an actress and screenwriter.[5][3] The series was based on the Poliakov family's life, depicting exaggerated characters and situations drawn from their domestic world; Poliakov played a version of himself — the family's hypochondriac father, husband to Shoshana, and parent to characters named Yael, Itamar, and Ariel.[5][3] The project also had a personal connection to his earlier work: he had chosen the name Yael for his daughter after the song Ahuvati Yael, which appeared in Cinema Gashash.[10]

HaGashash HaHiver's hold on Israeli popular culture outlasted the trio's active decades and resisted simple categorization. Their material appealed to "the highbrow and the lowbrow" alike, and their invented language — Gashashit — generated expressions that entered everyday Israeli speech.[9] The Israel Prize judges, announcing the group's 2000 award, stated that the trio had both reflected Israeli life during the country's first fifty years — encompassing wars, immigration absorption, and the struggle for existence — and actively shaped that culture, its language, and its national identity.[5] The judges characterized the group's language and imagery as having "broken the walls of the inflexible Hebrew language" and declared that someone unfamiliar with HaGashash expressions did not know a large portion of the culture that had developed in Israel.[5]

Poliakov received the group's Israel Prize alongside Levy and Banai in 2000, the prize recognizing thirty-seven years of collective activity.[10][6] The following year, 2001, he received a separate Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the state in his own right.[6] The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality later honored him by placing a memorial plaque at the entrance to his home on Beit Horon Street.[11] The Jerusalem Post described the jokes and sketches of HaGashash HaHiver as having acquired cult status and as capturing the Israeli character "at its best and worst."[5]

Poliakov's posthumous standing rests on two distinct contributions. The first is his role in creating and sustaining HaGashash HaHiver across nearly four decades, during which the trio became a defining institution of Israeli comedy. The second is the late-career body of work in drama — stage productions, television series, and film roles — that demonstrated a dramatic range beyond the comedic persona for which he was originally celebrated.[4] His daughter Yael's creation of Hakol Dvash as a project built around her father in his final years stands as a measure of both his continued vitality as a performer and the family dimension of a career inseparable from the people he worked alongside.[3][4]

Yisrael Poliakov died on October 30, 2007, at Rabin Medical Center–Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva, at the age of sixty-six.[1][3] He had been hospitalized approximately two weeks before his death following a heart episode and had undergone bypass surgery several years earlier.[3] A serious illness had been discovered roughly three months before he died; his family and close friends kept the news private throughout.[4] Shaike Levi and Gavri Banai were at his bedside.[4] He was survived by his wife Shoshana and their three children — Itamar, Ariel, and Yael.[3]

Published accounts disagree on Poliakov's birthplace. EDB and Ynet identify Jerusalem,[1][3] as do Habama and Maariv,[7][10] while Globes states that he was born in Tel Aviv.[4] Because the preponderance of available accounts gives Jerusalem, this article uses Jerusalem.

Sources also describe the formation date of HaGashash HaHiver differently. EDB and Ynet place the trio's establishment in 1964, consistent with the November 1964 premiere of its debut program.[1][3] Habama likewise gives 1964, while Maariv records that Pashanel's proposal and the trio's preliminary work began in late 1963 before the public debut the following year.[7][10] These accounts can be reconciled as referring respectively to the group's conceptual formation and its first public program.