Just two months ago he sent me a photo greeting for a birthday, and I so hoped they would recover • I find it hard to believe he is not • Nitza Shaul in a farewell column from Yehuda Barkan
Saul, Barkan and Gilat Ankuri
Photography:
Moshe Shai
Yehuda and I met right when I was young and I participated alongside him in the film "Katz and Kerso", where our professional paths met for the first time.
He was charming and sweet, loved by everyone, and of course we later worked together on the movie "Snooker Celebration", where he and I played a pair of twins and it was fun and great fun.
He was a professional actor, a comedian who also knows how to move, very creative.
The term "borax movies" was actually created on the set.
There was a very special dynamic between him and Zevik Revach and Boaz Davidson.
I was the "girl" of the set, and they took care of me and cared for me all the time.
After a few years we filmed together the film "Look Me in the Eye", a film commissioned for the Ministry of Education, about road accidents, but from the offensive side, where we played a couple.
Over time we met a lot, we kept in touch over the years, but the most intimate meeting between us was about two years ago on the set of the film "Love in Shlakes", which became Yehuda's last film in the secular sector.
There I discovered a new Judas, a man who followed his faith, who became a man of faith but without being a preacher, without forcing himself, an enlightened man, with a phenomenal personality.
I was embarrassed sometimes during filming, I did not know how to deal with him, and he told me "feel free, do your job as you see fit".
We had mental conversations for hours.
He was a particularly exciting person, and his attitude to each person on the set was personal and fatherly and warm.
He was an enlightened man.
Two months ago he sent me a videotaped birthday greeting, as exciting as only he knows, and when I heard he was infected with corona I was hoping he would get out of it.
I kept in touch almost daily with the family, and I was sure that in two weeks we would talk and laugh and hear from him stories about how he got through it.
I find it hard to believe he is gone.
I was apprehensive, I admit, because he came with more health issues, but I suppressed that fear.
This is a very big loss.
I wish there were more such people, mediating between religious and secular.
He knew how to do it.
He was there for everyone, loved everyone.
Free Love.