page_title: Shmuel Rodensky
section_title: Stage career
hierarchical_section_title: Shmuel Rodensky / Stage career
caption_attribution_description: English: Shmuel Rodenski Bust by Uri Yhalom in the Habima National Theatre עברית: שמואל רודנסקי, פסל מאת אורי יהלום המוצג באכסדרת תאטרון הבימה
context_page_description: Shmuel Rodensky was a Russian-born Israeli actor whose stage, film, and television career in Israel and West Germany spanned six decades. He immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1924 and studied drama at the Eretz Israel Theatre in Tel Aviv. After performing with several theatre companies between 1928 and 1948, he joined Habima Theatre in 1949 and became one of its principal players. He was known as "the Israeli Laurence Olivier". In 1968 Rodensky traveled to Hamburg to join the German-language production of Fiddler on the Roof, playing the lead role of Tevye the Dairyman. He performed this role more than 1,400 times throughout West Germany and Switzerland. His notable film roles include the lead in the 1968 Israeli film Tevye and His Seven Daughters, Simon Wiesenthal in the 1974 Anglo-German film The Odessa File, and Jethro in the 1974 BBC television miniseries Moses the Lawgiver. He was the recipient of numerous honors in both Israel and West Germany, including the Federal Service Cross from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Israel Prize.
context_section_description: In his early years in Mandatory Palestine, Rodensky was employed in draining swamps, field work, and construction. He studied at the studio of drama at the Eretz Israel Theatre in Tel Aviv and performed with a number of theatre companies between 1928 and 1948, including the Eretz Israel Theatre, Hakumkum (The Kettle), and Hamatate (The Broom). In 1949 he responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking new performers at the Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv and became one of that theatre's principal players.  He was known as "the Israeli Laurence Olivier".
  At Habima, Rodensky performed a wide variety of dramatic roles, including Iago in Othello and the cardinal in The Deputy. He also performed satire, as in Ephraim Kishon's 1953 play Yiddishpiel.
  Rodensky formed several artistic partnerships. He and another Habima actor named Shmuel, Shmuel Segal, created a Yiddish-speaking comedic team called The Shmuliks; they were later joined by a third Habima actor, Shmuel Atzmon. The Three Shmuliks performed in Israel and abroad. In 1985, The Three Shmuliks were part of the Israeli delegation of actors, writers, and public figures invited by the Polish government to the 35th-anniversary celebration of the Yiddish State Theater in Warsaw. With Segal and another Habima actor named Goldenberg, Rodensky was also a member of Die Kleine Mentshalach ("The Little People"), a Yiddish-language trio that performed dramatic readings of works by Sholem Aleichem. Rodensky formed a third, satirical trio with Jacob Timen and Esther Gamlielit of Hamatate (The Broom Theater).
caption: Bust of Shmuel Rodensky at the Habima Theatre
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