Eliezer Ansky

Eliezer Asher Alexander Ansky (Abarbanel; 1904 – November 1989) was a Bulgarian-born Israeli actor, theatre director, playwright, set designer, and mosaic artist. He was the father of actor and radio personality Alex Ansky and a recipient of the Yakir Yerushalayim (1986).

Ansky was born in 1904 in the city of Samokov, Bulgaria. Following the tradition among Bulgarian Jews, in which one child in the family was dedicated to intellectual and artistic pursuits rather than commerce, he studied theatre in Sofia at the Jean Daniel Institute of Fine Arts and Theatre. He became the head of the State Children's Theatre in Sofia.

In addition to his theatre work, Ansky was a Zionist activist and a member of Poale Zion in Bulgaria. He edited the Bulgarian-language Zionist newspaper The Zionist Stage before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine.

In late 1945, following World War II, Ansky immigrated to Palestine aboard the ship Transylvania with his wife Gisela (1915–1978), an actress in the national theatre and a radio broadcaster, and their son Alex.

In December 1946, he founded in Tel Aviv a youth theatre called "Bamatenu" ("Our Stage"), which from 1951 operated under the auspices of the Ohel Theatre. The theatre became a training ground for future prominent Israeli actors, including Gideon Singer, Oded Kotler, Yossi Graber, Shoshik Shani, Yaakov Ben-Sira, Zvi Borodo, Shimon Bar, Nissim Azikri, and his son Alex Ansky.

Over the years, the theatre staged 16 productions, including The Adventures of Prince Omer (1946), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Tailor Who Became King, Hasamba, The Snow Queen, Cinderella, The Adventures of Hershele Ostropoler, and In the Land of Lubengulu, King of Zulu.

Ansky also translated dozens of plays and authored original ones for the theatre. Additionally, he translated the Zohar into Bulgarian. In 1960 the theatre in Tel Aviv closed, and he moved to Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem, he re-established the theatre in a new format, supported by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Working and Studying Youth movement, under the name "Bamatenu for Youth," which he managed until 1974. In 1975, he moved to Kiryat Shmona, where he spent three years running drama clubs for local youth, before returning to Jerusalem to establish a theatre at a retirement home called "The Theatre of Time."

Between 1956 and 1966, Ansky traveled several times to Ravenna, Italy, where he studied the art of mosaic at the Academy of Fine Arts, alongside artists Nahum Gutman and Amos Aricha. He was inspired by ancient mosaics discovered in archaeological excavations and sought to revive this form of Eretz Israel art.

In 1968, a senior cleric of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem asked him to restore a damaged and soot-covered fresco depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus near the Stone of Anointing. Ansky agreed and worked on the restoration as a mosaic for 14 years. He used stones from Verona, and as a model for the crucified figure he used the face of his son Alex, who was then 33 years old – the age of the crucified.

He completed the mosaic in 1982, without signing it or accepting payment, keeping the project secret until his death. Another of his major works is the Nahum Gutman mosaic wall in the building of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel in Tel Aviv, as well as a mosaic at the Yad LaBanim building in Ramat Gan.

Eliezer Ansky died in November 1989 at the age of 86. He was buried on Har HaMenuchot. He was survived by his only son, Alex Ansky.

His persona was commemorated in the Bulgarian film Bulgarian Rhapsody (2014), portrayed by his son Alex Ansky.

• Theatre for Children and Youth: The Idea and the Practice, Jerusalem, 1969 (Hebrew)

• Haya Yosef, Small Stories about Great People: Interviews, Tel Aviv: Yaron Golan, 2005, pp. 152–162.
• Raz Amitai, Children's Theatre in Israel: The Growth and Development of Theatre for Children and Youth in Israel, Tel Aviv: Safra, 2013.

• Archived photo of Gisela Ansky (2020-02-18) at the Center for Jewish History