Jacques Cohen

Jacques Cohen was born in 1930 in Alexandria

Jacques Cohen was born Yaakov Cohen in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1930. His mother Clementine was an Egyptian Jew of Italian origin, and his father Yitzhak was born in Jerusalem. In 1935 the family moved to Jerusalem and settled in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood.

He studied at the Catholic Ratisbonne school, where he learned English, French, Arabic and Hebrew and met Shaike Ophir. He later cleaned and translated films at the Orion cinema. During the War of Independence he sold newspapers, and he later ran a newspaper distribution agency in Jerusalem.

He began acting in 1954 in an amateur group and later joined Phillip Diskin's Circle Theater. In the late 1960s he joined Israeli television, acting in Arabic series such as Adel and Samira. He played in many films, including The Delta Force in 1986.

From 1985 he played Abu Rami, an Arab restaurant owner, on HaMis'ada HaGdola, a role that made him known in Arab countries. From 2003 he appeared in hummus ads. In 2004 he opened a restaurant in Bitzaron, where he lived, and he died in 2016 of complications of pneumonia.