{"id":292680,"date":"2026-02-15T14:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/292680\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T14:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:48:09","slug":"actress-builds-new-life-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/292680\/","title":{"rendered":"actress builds new life in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judith Mergui, 39, a mother of one and a Tel Aviv resident, is an actress.<\/p>\n

Childhood: \u201cI was born in Paris to a Jewish family. My father is from Morocco and my mother from Algeria. I grew up on the story of my uncle, who made aliya, lived in a kibbutz and was the hero of his sisters. In the neighborhood where I grew up there were no Jews, and I studied in public schools. I had no religious markers and I wasn\u2019t the clich\u00e9 of the French Jewish girl, but my memories are, unfortunately, interwoven with antisemitism.<\/p>\n

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2 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d2'\u05d5\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05d2'\u05d5\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea<\/p>\n

Judith Mergui. ‘When I decided to make aliyah, they thought I was crazy’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Haim Shraga, talent agency)<\/p>\n

Antisemitism: \u201cWhen I was eight, a girl at school called me a \u2018dirty Jew.\u2019 At 14, a few days after the lynching in Ramallah<\/a>, students formed a circle around me in the hallway, passed around a newspaper, read out negative statements about Israel and kicked me. A teacher who walked by took me to the principal. I was injured and bleeding, and the principal told me, \u2018Try to be a little less Jewish. They\u2019re the majority and you\u2019re alone.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what hurt more, the blows or the principal\u2019s words. After that I joined a Jewish youth movement. I went through all of them, from political right affiliation to left, from religious to secular. I took part in events, lectures and demonstrations. I found my place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making aliyah: \u201cIn 2006, when I was 21, Ilan Halimi was murdered in France<\/a>. I felt that the French weren\u2019t even sad. When I decided to immigrate to Israel, people thought I was crazy. I had already completed acting studies, and they told me, \u2018What are you going to do there? It\u2019s a desert, there\u2019s no Moli\u00e8re there.\u2019 But I was convinced Israel would become known in the arts and that Europe no longer had much to say artistically. I didn\u2019t feel I was leaving France, but that France had given up on me. I immigrated alone. My mother and sister came later.\u201d<\/p>\n

A goal and a scholarship: \u201cI knew I couldn\u2019t be an actress here until I knew the language. When I arrived at ulpan, I showed everyone – the head of the program, the technician, the cleaner – the dates for auditions at acting schools. I told them, \u2018Within five months I\u2019ll be there.\u2019 I decided to stop speaking French. I would sit with \u2018Hamlet\u2019 in French and Hebrew, go word by word, trying to learn. I was accepted to Beit Zvi with an excellence scholarship, and after a year I transferred to Kibbutzim College.<\/p>\n

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2 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d2'\u05d5\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05d2'\u05d5\u05d6\u05d9\u05ea<\/p>\n

On the set of Zaguri Empire <\/p>\n

(Photo: Haim Shraga Talent Agency)<\/p>\n

A pivotal meeting: \u201cIn my third year, a young man from Be’er Sheva who had studied two years above us came to direct our production. His name was Maor Zaguri. With that production, we staged performances at fringe theaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter graduation I lived in London with my partner at the time. A few months later I received a message from Zaguri saying he was writing a TV series and that there was a role for me. I wished him luck and assumed it would take forever, but a few months later I got a call saying they were waiting for me for an audition. That\u2019s how I was cast in the first season of \u2018Zaguri Empire,\u2019 in the role of Michelle, and I returned to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Career: \u201cI knew my French accent would limit me here, so I decided to create my own projects. About a decade ago I performed a stand-up show I wrote called \u2018Inshaaliyah,\u2019 which dealt with the difficulties faced by olim from France. The show succeeded in Israel and abroad and ran until the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater I appeared in the series \u2018Tahrir\u2019 and also in a new series by Marco Carmeli, \u2018Double Panther,\u2019 which will air soon. When I look back at my life, I made many mistakes along the way, but there is one thing I did right, and that was immigrating to Israel. It\u2019s a decision I\u2019m proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

What French habit should Israelis adopt?
\n\u201cGentlemanship. For example, an older man helping his wife put on her jacket.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will you never get used to?
\n\u201cTempers that flare up in an instant, going from zero to 100.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you miss most about France?
\n\u201cThe cheeses.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is your favorite place in Israel?
\n\u201cTel Aviv, specifically Florentin, my neighborhood. That place lifted me back onto my feet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judith Mergui, 39, a mother of one and a Tel Aviv resident, is an actress. Childhood: \u201cI was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-292680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}