When Israel is at war, even actors and entertainers get call-up notices to serve. Years ago, entertainers may have had a reputation for avoiding army service, but that is clearly no longer the case today.
Yadin Gellman, an actor who is an officer in the elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, was seriously wounded after he was shot in the chest and the hand fighting Hamas terrorists at Kibbutz Be’eri on Saturday night.
Gellman’s girlfriend, Channel 12 investigative news reporter Adva Dadon, posted about Gellman’s injury on Instagram, writing, “Thank you to everyone for your concern. Please pray for his well-being, as well as that of the other wounded, the missing, and the heroic fighters who are risking their lives.”
Gellman, 30, decided to become an actor following his army service and was quickly cast in Avi Nesher’s drama, Image of Victory, about an isolated Israeli kibbutz near the Egyptian border in the Independence War. Ironically, he played an IDF officer protecting a besieged kibbutz in the South. Nesher praised him in an interview when the film was released in 2021, saying that Gellman trained the cast in combat and firearms use for a month.
“It was important that their body language was correct,” Nesher said.
Gellman portrays soldiers in his acting work
Gellman stars in two upcoming films that recently premiered at the Haifa International Film Festival, and in both of them, he plays soldiers: Victory, a musical about young people in the aftermath of the Six Day War, and Arugam Bay, in which he portrays a combat soldier coping with the loss of one of his friends in the Second Lebanon War.
Gellman is just one of many Israeli stars currently doing reserve duty to fight Hamas. Lucy Aharish, an Israeli-Arab television presenter and actress who is married to Jewish Israeli actor Tsahi Halevi (Fauda, Line in the Sand), drew criticism when their mixed marriage was announced five years ago. But she showed their unity against the haters when Halevi was sent to reserve duty two days ago in an Instagram story.
Over a photo of Halevi sitting with their toddler son, she wrote in Hebrew: “My love, who is more dear to me than anything, went out to defend [the country] and there is no rest... To the hero soldiers, the warriors, and the civilians who fight for [our] home, take care of yourselves, each and every one of you, and may you return to your homes whole and safe.”
She went on to offer condolences to the families of the dead, the wounded, and the missing.
Faudo co-creators head to Sderot
Other Fauda stars also became real-life warriors. Idan Amedi, a musician who plays Sagi, is doing reserve duty in an infantry unit and posted on Instagram that he could no longer interact with his fans online. Fauda co-creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, along with Israel Democracy Institute president Yohanan Plesner, headed to Sderot “to extract two families,” along with members of the group, Brothers in Arms, according to Raz’s Instagram account.
Eliraz Sade, an actor and digital creator married to television presenter Ilanit Levi, posted a photo of himself in uniform in front of supplies, heading off to his reserve service.
Model Tal Morad put away his fashionable linen suits and posed in his uniform as he left for the army reserves.
Dozens of stars posted about or ran drives to collect and distribute much-needed supplies for people in the South and soldiers. Noga Erez also held a Zoom call for people who needed to talk about the events of the last few days.
Many well-known Israelis were personally affected by the attacks. Television personality Ma’ayan Adam sobbed uncontrollably as she spoke to her colleagues on Channel 12 about her younger sister, Mapal, who was murdered at the rave music festival, saying she was “a beautiful girl... She loved children so much, she loved people... She had endless friends.”