Three and a half months after a car accident that almost ended his life, Nero Levy looks like a million dollars.
His hair is combed back, he jokes with his doctors and those around him, smokes a cigarette after a cigarette, uses walking sticks, talks just like Nero and spreads love everywhere.
But deep down he still hurts.
"Because of the magnitude of the event, and the media festival that took place when I was sedated and ventilated, everyone now expects to see a completely dismembered person," he explains in his first interview since the dramatic event that catapulted him against his will into the headlines.
"After all, there have already been posts eulogizing me. That's why the initial reaction to me is 'Wow, you look great. Although you're terribly thin, but voila - you're walking. You look normal.'
"People thought I wouldn't look esthetic anymore. Although I broke two front and back teeth, and everything is temporary now, and it will be back to how it was, but people exaggerate and say, 'Come on, you look better now.' Go tell them my whole body hurts And I'm still broken. It's not the same Nero that he really is.
"For me, these reactions are a source of strength. I say to myself, 'Well, Nir, you are lucky. You could have not stood up, or woken up without your right leg.'
Always considered a popular character.
"Throughout my career I have experienced ups and downs. People always smiled when they saw me on the street, but here it is something different in its intensity. I tried to understand why, and a dear person explained to me: 'People appreciate you, but the thought that you were not alive for a second is just like Lose someone's arm or leg - suddenly you feel the lack.'
"That's why I want to thank the people of Israel as a whole. The amount of love showered on me from the moment I opened my eyes is amazing. From every color, religion, race, gender and age. Caring. Concern. People prayed for me. I've been an actor for more than 25 years, no longer a child, until Now I really didn't know that I was loved like that. It really moves me."
The scene of the accident, August 2022. "They only showed me one picture - the motorcycle lying at the intersection. It was difficult for me, because it's like another part of me," photo: MDA Operations Documentation
"I kept visitors away from me"
Two weeks ago, Levy (54) was released from Ichilov Hospital, where he was hospitalized for about three months. Now he makes sure to come to the hospital three times a week, for rehabilitation and follow-up treatments as part of a day hospitalization. As he tries to recover from the dark period that began on the day of the accident, August 26,
2022 He discovers that quite a few moments have been erased from his memory.
"I have a total blackout from the moment of the accident. It was Friday afternoon, I was driving from south to north on Namir Road, one traffic light from my house. Just before I rode I was looking for my daughter, because we like to go for a ride on the motorcycle, have our fun, have lunch together. We do it regularly. This time she didn't answer me. She was just taking a shower. So I said, 'If I have nothing to do - I'll come home.' And that's it. I don't remember anymore.
"It happened at the most unexpected time, at the most unexpected moment and in the most unexpected place, and when I was as careful as possible. It came out of nowhere and was so traumatic. I woke up in intensive care after a week between life and death, and I didn't understand anything.
"They passed me from the right to the left. One car went through the red light and hit me. After that, someone got confused - also continued through the red light and hit me. If I had a light motorcycle, it would have flown to the side, but it's a Harley Davidson, 350 kilos of metal. The motorcycle hit a bomb and fell on me, With all the weight. I was injured in my pelvis, my right leg, my left hand was fixed with irons, my jaw was locked.
"Fortunately, one of the greatest doctors in the world lives above the intersection, heard the accident, came down and performed life-saving operations on me. They injected me with eight doses of blood within three minutes of driving to Ichilov. If the accident had happened any further, I would no longer be there. They saved Me. I am a so-called medical miracle.
"At first I didn't internalize the situation. When I woke up, I mostly felt pain. I was all in irons, completely drugged from painkillers, and I didn't realize the magnitude of the event and its severity. It took a while before I was able to reconstruct and internalize what happened."
caused a lot of concern in those days.
"For the first two weeks, I pushed everyone away from me and didn't communicate. I couldn't stand anyone, including the people closest to me, including my mother, father and brother. Visitors were kept away. I needed time to myself.
"In retrospect, the children and relatives told me that in the first few days, after I woke up, I shouted 'Allah Akbar' quite a few times. The post-trauma from the army and from the time of the attacks woke up in me when I was hanging between life and death. I felt like an IDF soldier who was wounded."
What did you initially think about your situation?
"I'm a Golanchik, and the Golanchiks have a saying: 'Until you die - you don't die.' I crossed the road to get some air and to get to a meeting in Babylon to sign a contract for a play on Hanukkah, not a bad living. As I was crossing with my bicycle in hand, a motorcycle came and gave me a bomba, what is a bomba, like in the cartoons - I saw stars. I fell on the road, cleared the Myself to the grass. It was a time of 'traffic lights', all the people around pulled out cameras. Pediah. I felt unpleasant, even a little guilty.
"So I drove myself home alone, like an idiot, without exchanging details. The motorcyclist disappeared, social security did not recognize it as a work accident, even though I lost my job at that moment. I only realized the severity of the injury at home. My left leg was blown off. I needed a hospital and plaster
"Two years ago I returned from an event at Barbie. It was lunch time, I was in a high mood. I was driving in Ben-Yehuda. Traffic jam. Two girls are sitting in the mother's Jeep, full music, full air conditioning. The girl decided, out of nowhere, that she was turning left without signaling. And who On the left? Your brother with another Harley. So that the bike wouldn't be damaged, I stopped her with my hand. With my hand!
"Before an ambulance arrived, photographers had already come to Guy Pines. They took me to the emergency room with an open fracture in my hand. They wanted to hospitalize me, but I said, 'Tomorrow I have photos for the series 'Years of the Moon.' necessary".
I want to thank all the people of Israel.
The amount of love showered on me is amazing.
The care, the concern, the prayer for me.
I've been an actor for more than 25 years, I'm not a child anymore, and until now I really didn't know that I was loved like this", Photo: Shay Franco
"There is no justice in the country and there is no justice"
"Now, when this accident happened, after a week I woke up, and after another week in the orthopedic ward, I still thought it was an accident like the previous two. I didn't understand what had happened to me. I shouted, all drugged up, 'I want to go home, enough!'
A professor who was there laughed at me and said, 'Do you want to go home? No problem. We'll send you home. Get him an ambulance.'
"And my mother is crying like I've never seen her. And my father, who is the most manly man in the world, was shocked like I've never seen him. I'm drugged from the drugs and just want to go home. So they took me home in an ambulance, put me up in an elevator on a stretcher, and only at home did I realize how much I Broken down, I internalized the situation for the first time.
"This is a great professor, not a sucker. He saved my life. He knew what he was doing. The next day I returned to Ichilov like a Swiss soldier, straight to rehabilitation, and except for Yom Kippur I didn't go home until they got tired of me. When you're a golanchik, it stays with you For life. It won't help."
Did you get to talk to the offending driver?
"I don't have any personal relationship with him. I don't even know who he is, and I preferred not to deal with it, even though I was offered to talk to him.
"It's a joke if he isn't severely punished. One of the reasons things look like this here is that there is no law and no justice. People do terrible things, come to court - and the judge gives a ridiculous verdict. So how will they learn? A man ran a red light, Friday at noon, and that Happens all day all over the country."
Were you worried that you would remain a nursing home for the rest of your life?
"I didn't bother with such thoughts. I am a very intuitive person by nature, very attentive to myself. I saw my injuries, I felt them. I couldn't sleep, I could only lie on my back, and I couldn't eat because my jaw moved and locked, so I had to nurse and fix it. This means Eat only liquids and soups. Food is strength, but during this period I lost seven to eight kilos.
"Physically, I had the hardest time with the irons in my jaw, I felt like Hannibal Lecter. The inability to speak bothered me less. The point was to eat and smoke - these are trivial things, brother."
What made you strong?
"I drew strength from the process. During the rehabilitation, I saw people without limbs around me. A young man who was standing on a chair to change a light bulb - had a stroke and is now paralyzed and stutters. I told myself, 'You will come back, you are strong, you are a cannon'. That's how I encouraged myself, 'You are wild Lucky. On the one hand, this accident is stinking bad luck. On the other hand, Valk, I could not wake up.
"The day I barely woke up, Queen Elizabeth went upstairs, and it must have been crowded there. God must have said, 'I also need Nero here now? Let's take care of the Queen first, and keep him alive for the time being. He still has a role to play.'" That's how I felt.
"During the healing, I heard a lot of music. When I still couldn't move, I would ask my friend, Yarin, to 'put me in the chair to chill in the sun.' It strengthened me.
"I would read a lot, although it was not easy for me to concentrate because of the blow to the head. The book '12 Rules for Life' by Jordan Peterson gave me a lot of strength. Everything starts and ends in the head.
"If you had asked me before the accident, 'Are you ready to go back?'
I would answer, 'One minute I'm not going back'. And if you ask me today - voila, still not going back. Not giving up anything. The accident is another lesson in life.
"As far as I'm concerned, before the accident I was 100. Although not 20-year-old 100, but a great 100 - with the fracture that healed, and that wart, and the graying hair, and a wrinkle here and there. This is the beauty of life. The mantras and clichés are true - if you think young, healthy and well, It will also affect the physicality, my brother.
"You don't have to deny your age and go to a beauty doctor and have injections and surgeries.
I will not be persuaded to do botox, because I take the beauty of age and grow up with it.
Therefore, if before the accident I was 100, my ambition is to be 100 again, or at least 90.
"I am a person for whom freedom is everything. Nir is freedom. I like to walk the most. Put on headphones, walk with the dog from the north of Tel Aviv to the south of the city and back, until the dog gets tired and tells me, 'Stop already, you maniac, my paws are going The legs'. I wish I could do it again. But you have to remember that I recovered really quickly. Three months. People after an accident like this don't walk for a year."
Will you get on a motorcycle again?
"It doesn't seem realistic to me, and it's likely that it won't happen again because of my children and parents. They cried. Like my mother cried for me, there's no way she'll let me get on a motorcycle again. It's a kind of requiem. A motorcycle has been an episode for me since I was 20.
"I didn't see any photos from the accident, because it's hard for me to deal with it. I was only shown one photo - of the motorcycle, lying there at the intersection. It was difficult for me, because the motorcycle is like another part of me. A real part of me."
"Precisely when I was most crushed"
What did it do to you, when you realized that those close to you thought they had lost you?
"It really shook me and made me realize how random life is. On the other hand, this bomb gave me a lot of meaning in life. A friend asked me if when I was between life and death I saw or felt something else. So no white light. Life just disappears like that. Like nothing. as if crushed by an ant.
"But everyone around you, they stay with it and the consequences for the rest of their lives. My children were in a very difficult situation. The physical pain dissolves in the end and is forgotten, but emotional pain can survive with you for a lifetime.
"I don't know how aware my children are of their father's size, but it's like their father is unaware of his own size. It was only during the hospitalization that I suddenly realized the dimensions. True, it was always there and all the time, but the accident made me notice it. I said To myself, 'What are you wondering? After all, you are the brother-in-law of the entire State of Israel.'
"I received so much care and love. People who were having a hard time came to me and said, 'We prayed for you and lit candles.' Today I want to give back to everyone and do good to all the people of Israel."
He met his current partner, Yarin Habee, within the walls of the hospital.
She is three decades younger than him, a medical student who works in Ichilov and the Schneider Center for Pediatrics.
"Yirin is an Eshkolot woman, a special woman in all respects. We met in a difficult situation, and the way in which she contains the situation is amazing. Much of my rehabilitation, mental and physical, is thanks to her, and that is not obvious. Her love is the most incomprehensible. At first, I even resisted the relationship , because I was at the height of my weaknesses, the most exposed, the most naked, the most hurt."
Although it seems as if you have the ability to find someone in any situation, hospitalization in Ichilov is the last place we would expect to find a romantic relationship.
"It's Nero's laugh. Precisely in the places where you would expect me to find someone - I don't. More than once and twice I went to parties where I most wanted to meet someone, and no one looked at me. Suddenly, in the place where you are the most crushed - that's exactly where it happened."
Does the age difference between you have any effect?
"He is not important. Between men and women the age difference is not a function. Men are childish, and the woman is mature. A woman will always complement the man, be a mirror for him.
"As the father of a girl, I can testify that at the age of 13, when my daughter would throw a sentence at me in the car, I would turn around and wonder if it was really my daughter or a 30-year-old woman. That's how girls are, that's how women are. Their emotional intelligence is high. Their ability to manipulate and act is amazing . We men, when we get injured, we only get dumber."
In a previous injury from 2020. "Already used to it", photo: Nir Pekin
"The cost of living hurt me too"
Nero proves himself to be a very positive type.
But when he tries to analyze the direction in which the State of Israel is moving, something in his optimism cracks.
"We live in a pot, and the ingredients cooked in our porridge bubble up and spill out. It's the physical violence on the roads, it's the intolerance for each other, it's the extreme discourse on the networks, it's the inability to accept the other, it's the neglect of the infrastructure for years and it's mismanagement. The address has always been on the wall, but the majority choose not to see it. I worry about the future of my children, the future of my country and the future of the people.
"I tried to consume as few painkillers as possible. I examine myself, and only when the pain is unbearable do I say, 'Enough already, don't play the hero. It will ease your pain.' When I left the hospital I was given a prescription, but what did I discover? There is a shortage of painkillers In the pharmacies. There are no pills. This shows a certain anxiety in the population.
"There are deep processes here that have been permeating for years, and society should not be conducted like this. At the end of these processes, the citizens will be referred to us. It happens. It happened."
At the age of 16, Levy wore a shirt of Rabbi Meir Kahane's "So" movement and participated in far-right demonstrations.
In the years that followed, he moderated, changed his views, and today he looks at the strengthening of Itamar Ben Gabir and his group in a horizontal way and is convinced that this is the result of processes that the company went through.
Ben Gvir, photo: Gideon Markovich
"Ben Gabir understood his position as a politician and the sweetness of his lips. It may be that he really changed and realized that what you see from there you don't see from here, and vice versa. But the bottom line, the boy who at the time took down the emblem of Rabin's Cadillac - whose murder started the deterioration of the State of Israel, and even No one will convince me otherwise - appointed Minister of Internal Security. This is the direction we are going.
"I can understand those who want to live in partnership in places like Hebron, on the way to Nablus or just near the road crossing Samaria. I drove on it exactly a month before the accident, on the way to the Bekaa, I looked around and realized that we were one, intertwined for better or worse. That is, from the sea to the Jordan This is one country - and nothing will help anymore.
"The former ruler of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, said years ago, 'The Jews and the Arabs must understand that they live in a bi-national state.' What you've been saying all these years. Where have you been for 20 years? After all, you've been in power for two decades. Now you can't cover up anymore and look for excuses. So please, let's see what happens."
There are many who warn that what will happen is the "end of the country".
"In the end, people are not stupid. Maybe sometimes they are unaware, they don't feel like messing with something, but as soon as it knocks on their door - they sober up. Sometimes it has to be worse, so that they understand how bad it can be. This is life. I Want to hope we don't have to really get to the worst, because we have no one but ourselves. Really. And we didn't prove ourselves now, when they needed us. We were cowards.
"After all, between the six days and 1973, Israeli pilots shot down MiGs with Russian pilots, my dear brother. And that was the red and scary Russia with nuclear weapons. What has changed since then? Why were we afraid to enter into a conflict with Russia today? Spirit and soul always win, that's why the Ukrainians win. But we have weakened, our spirit is weak, we can no longer deal with wounded soldiers, dead bodies and prisoners. 20 years the right-wing has been in power thanks to this - Netanyahu does not like wars, and he avoids them. But today the army cannot do anything.
at rest during the rehabilitation period.
"I'm like a Swiss soldier", photo: Nir Pekin
"My son is a soldier and flew to Barcelona for a vacation. When I was regular - I didn't make it to Tel Aviv, so Barcelona? The army became soft, with WhatsApps. Officers are afraid to move. The IDF is no longer the defense force.
It works out of the Israeli spirit.
When you see a soldier yelling at a protester, 'Ben Gvir will take care of you', these are processes that take years.
In my time, not even the Rapoul boys would go near the MGB. Today every boy and girl wants to be in the MGB.
Why?
to beat the Arabs.
Terrible.
It's all education."
How does the cost of living affect you?
"He hurts me as he does all of us. I am a person who eats out, who spends, and during my time in the hospital they took care of me. My parents brought food, but there were expenses, and no income came in. And yet, the tax assessors from the Income Tax continued to call me to request reports even on time I was hospitalized.
This is the reality we live in.
"The cost of living is nothing new. A year ago we were the most expensive city in the world. I know Tel Aviv as well as the back of my hand. I have lived there for years, but today it does not justify the reason for living there. There is no quality of life, the street is not street, and the renovations and the noise chased me all the way to Ichilov.
With Harley Davidson, in the past.
"It is not realistic that I will ride again", photo: Nir Pekin
"There has always been an agenda here to slave the land, buy an apartment and have children. Children are joy. And what happened? Demography. The area of the land decreased, but the demographics increased. Children are produced here like sunflower seeds. Every average Ashkenazi family - three. Why? Go to Italy, they are in the red. Here, wherever you throw a stone - there are little ones. And they don't care what the old people know. We are boomers. So Tel Aviv will continue to fill up, without charity and without quality of life.
"25 years ago, when I lived in Nachelat Binyamin and met my first wife, later the mother of my children, I was ashamed to bring her there. There were drug addicts downstairs. Today, go rent or buy a house there. What has changed? There are those drug addicts, they haven't died yet. Suckers They don't die, they just change. And the more you make them - there will be more."
"Working on a play for the theater"
On December 22, Billy Ben Moshe's film, "Valentinus", will be released, in which Nero plays a leading role alongside Esti Zakheim, Ohad Shahar, Healy Lewis and Tair Shmoelov.
"It's a very challenging role," he says, "the film was shot in two weeks, and most of it takes place in one location. I play style-sensitive mobster Tony Soprano. My young wife cheats on me with the bank manager, and then I organize a couples meeting with him.
From "Valentinos", photo: Danor Glazer
"It's a film about actors, which will work or not only thanks to the acting in it. My character is great. When things are written well for me as an actor - it's fun. In the advanced seasons of 'Traffic Light', Adir Miller and Ran Schrig already understood Hefer terribly, and they upgraded him as a character. This Mainly expressed in the fourth season, I felt that the actor was given a place.
"This week I received an email from an adult from the university, who actually wrote a role for me. Someone wrote about me for the Teatronto - it spoke to me less. Before the corona virus, I did a play about a TV star that the family in the play adores and the daughter kidnaps him. My character was not that of Nero Levy, but early on the director asked if It's okay to call the character Nero. Because when Nero enters the stage - the viewer immediately understands the comedy and the subtext."
what do you watch on tv
"The channels that really work for me are National Geographic, the History Channel, the Travel Channel and Discovery. The last series I saw was the Korean 'Squid Game.' , because I know how to make it.
"The reality show I participated in ('Big Brother') was a net income. I didn't see it before, during, or after I left. Let me watch 'Aliens from the Past' or the show about the family that owns a pawn shop. I'm good at history , geography, general knowledge.
"What is broadcast on television today affects society. It's just cooking, weddings, gender or being parents. Where does this path lead?
"In the days before my injury, as a single person, I would open dating apps and see many divorced young women with children. There is no normal anymore. At the age of 22 you rush to get married, get an apartment and a mortgage, and then at the age of 35 you are already divorced. The other extreme is a single woman at the age of 35 with two dogs and a cat who is resentful of the whole world, or a 40-year-old who is still single and how much more can be spent. You have to think outside the box. We are very provincial and conservative in our approach to life.
"An open marriage doesn't make sense to me either. If you love someone and she loves you, and you start sharing each other, will love remain normal? It doesn't make sense. It's like I decided that I'm an open bachelor, an open bachelor life because I've exhausted the relationship. I already have two children , so why get married again? I would make it clear to every partner with whom I entered into a relationship - that there is no more marriage and no more children. Then chick-cheek they realize that there is no future and move on. But there are no rules for love, and all the clichés are true."
Nero had two children from his first marriage to Liran Gordon.
The eldest serves in the Navy ("he's a man-man, a phenomenon on the computer"), the daughter is a 12th grade student at Thelma Yelin High School and studies visual arts.
"My children are loud thanks to the fact that they have a loud mother. Since they were little they were exposed to my world, but in careful doses. I am like that too - I don't mix and I don't mix too much. I don't look for publicity, and my children turned out like that too. To this day I don't know If they saw a 'traffic light'."
What are your plans next?
"I'm dying to get back to myself. I'm working on a show for the Hebrew theater, and now the movie is coming out, and I want to build a show with my brother Eran. I want to bring back love and joy to everyone. To laugh, to do good, because life disappears in an instant. If I can give a smile, a hug and love to a few More Israelis - I won."
nirw@israelhayom.co.il
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