Israeli actor reflects on his Soviet childhood, rough arrival in Israel, service in Unit 8200, post-Oct. 7 tensions in Hollywood and the watch his father took from a Nazi soldierRotem Izak|Mark Ivanir’s path to Hollywood began far from the red carpets, in a small apartment in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, where writers, actors, singers and poets filled his childhood home almost every night.Chernivtsi, Ukraine. “I grew up in a three-room apartment with my parents, my sister and my grandparents in Chernivtsi,” he recalled. His grandmother died when he was 2, but his grandfather, a well-known Yiddish writer and actor, left a deep impression. “Our home was really a cultural salon of the Yiddish world. Every evening poets, singers, actors, painters and writers would come over. They would sit, drink, laugh.”5 View gallery Mark Ivanir(Alon Shafransky)According to family stories, the celebrated Yiddish writer Itzik Manger would sometimes get drunk and fall asleep on the family sofa. Ivanir’s grandfather, who was also a critic, once wrote a review of actress Dina Koenig, the mother of Lia Koenig, after which she stopped speaking to him.Pardes Katz, Israel. In 1972, when Ivanir was 7, his family immigrated to Israel during the large wave of immigration from the Soviet Union. The move was jarring. “I was uprooted from my life,” he said. “They didn’t even tell us we were immigrating, because in Soviet Russia you weren’t allowed to talk about it and they didn’t want me telling everyone. They said we were going to Moscow, and only on the train did they tell us we were on our way to Israel.”The family settled in Pardes Katz, a working-class neighborhood near Bnei Brak. For Ivanir, it was a difficult arrival. “I was one of the only Ashkenazi kids at school, and I had to toughen up,” he said. “The first time I went to school, I didn’t even make it there. On the way, I got slapped by Shuki the thug and went back home.”In the months that followed, he learned to defend himself. “I tried to show everyone that it wasn’t worth messing with the little Russian, because he also knew how to pick up a stone and hit back,” he said. “I think it eventually helped me in my career, because I play a lot of bad guys, and the initiation was in Pardes Katz.”Did you learn something about the drama of the villain, about his wound?