Haredi performer wins lifetime award days after going ‘missing’

Actor Shuli Rand will be awarded the Education Ministry’s prize for lifetime achievement for his contribution to Jewish culture, Education Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Monday. The announcement came days after Rand was temporarily feared missing.

Rand rose to fame as an actor, winning Israel’s Theater Actor of the Year several times. He abandoned acting in 1996, when he rediscovered religion and joined the Breslav Hasidic sect. In 2004, he returned to acting with his film debut “Ushpizin,” which he wrote and in which he cast his real-life wife to play his onscreen spouse.

Bennett praised Rand and his contribution to drama. “Shuli Rand has proven that art breaks all boundaries and communal division, that talent breaks preconceived ideas and opinions,” he said. “Shuli Rand symbolizes breaking down of barriers.”

The committee added, “Shuli Rand has left his stamp on both Jewish and Israeli culture.” Rand, it said, “expresses his uniqueness in the areas of theater, song, music, film and television.”

The prize is one of six new prizes that were announced last December and are awarded for Jewish cultural works in the fields of theater, film, dance, music, literature and poetry, as well as an award for lifetime achievement. Funding for the prizes comes from the Education Ministry’s Torah Culture Department, and each winner is awarded NIS 150,000 (around $38,000).

There had been concern for Rand’s safety Friday, when rumors began circulating that he was missing. But he posted on his Facebook page Saturday night, saying he was fine and thanking people for their concern.

Rand’s wife Michal told the Haredi website Kikar Hashabat that the family has debts of some three million shekels. The family sold their home in order to try to pay some of what they owe, and are currently without a home.