Yosef Shiloach

Yosef Shiloach was born in 1941 in Iranian Kurdistan

Shiloach was born Sirus Yousefian in a small town in Iranian Kurdistan, to a Mizrahi Jewish family. He immigrated to Israel with his family in 1950. He grew up in deep poverty in Shikun HaMizrah in Rishon LeZion.

He learned to read late and taught himself through books. In 1963 he finished acting studies in the first class of the Beit Zvi school. He first used the name Shalom Yosef, and after a newspaper misprint he officially changed it to Yosef Shiloach.

His first film was Mishpachat Simchon in 1964. He acted in more than 60 Israeli films, often playing exaggerated Mizrahi characters of Persian descent, and also appeared in foreign films such as Rambo III. He voiced Arik on Rechov Sumsum and in 1999 co-directed the documentary Moments of Grace.

Shiloach spoke out against discrimination of Mizrahi Jews and was active for Jewish-Arab coexistence. He supported dialogue between Israel and the PLO and in 1986 helped organize a peace conference in Bucharest. He lived abroad in the late 1980s and returned in 1991.

In 2001 he won an Ophir Award for his role in Kikar HaHalomot. He received a lifetime achievement award at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2009. He died of cancer in Tel Aviv in 2011, leaving a wife and two daughters.