1. Salomone "Moni" Ovadia was born on Solomon Ovadia on 16 April 1946 and is a Bulgarian-born Italian Jewish actor, musician, singer, theatrical author and activist.
18 Facts About Moni Ovadia
1. 2.
In March 1943, the 1,500 Jews of Plovdiv, including Moni Ovadia's family, were saved from the Holocaust by the actions of Metropolitan of Plovdiv, Cyril, one of the heads of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church who threatened to throw himself before the train were it to depart with the community's Jews, whom the Nazis planned to deport to a concentration camp.
3.
Moni Ovadia graduated in political science and made his debut in the theatre world under Roberto Leydi, as singer and musician in the band Almanacco Popolare.
4.
Moni Ovadia renamed it the Ensemble Havadia in 1978, a name drawn from his remote family origins.
5.
In 1984 Moni Ovadia made his debut as a theatrical actor.
6.
Moni Ovadia's treatment drew inspiration from both S An-sky's Yiddish drama Der Dibbuk and the Yiddish poet Itzhak Katzenelson's Song of the Murdered Jewish People.
7.
Moni Ovadia's following spectacles include Ballata di fine millennio, Pallida madre, tenera sorella, Il caso Kafka, Trieste, ebrei e dintorni, Mame, mamele, mamma, mama.
8.
The premier of his Trieste piece, which took place on the eve of the Jewish holiday, Simchat Torah, was full of topical allusion to the Jewish experience of that city, which Moni Ovadia noted drew on the work of his friend Claudio Magris, combined readings of the Torah with Jewish jokes and songs.
9.
In 2016, in an event that was broadcast by RAI to an audience of millions, Moni Ovadia was chosen to deliver one of the eulogies at Sforza Castle on the occasion of the funeral of Umberto Eco, Italy's most prominent post-war public intellectual and writer.
10.
Moni Ovadia chose to honour his friend by recounting one of the numerous Yiddish jokes he'd heard from Eco's vast repertoire.
11.
Moni Ovadia says of himself that he is "proudly extremist", qualifying this by stressing his opposition to any form of violence.
12.
Moni Ovadia has been an outspoken opponent of racism, within Italian society, which, he says, has absolved itself of any sense of guilt for its massacres in Ethiopia, Cyrenaica and former Yugoslavia.
13.
Moni Ovadia received an award from the University of Pavia in October 2007; in his acceptance speech he denounced the treatment of immigrants, especially Roma and Sinti.
14.
Moni Ovadia identifies as Jewish and agnostic; although he previously labeled himself as a "non-Zionist", Ovadia has moved on to identifying as an anti-Zionist.
15.
Moni Ovadia's first visit to Israel took place in 1966.
16.
Moni Ovadia is highly critical of Israel and of the double standards used by the United States in sanctioning human rights violations elsewhere, but never against Israel.
17.
The American writer Ruth Gruber, while noting the seminal role Moni Ovadia's work has played in promoting Jewish culture, adds a reservation:.
18.
Moni Ovadia has had a notable influence on the Neapolitan writer Erri De Luca.