"I Never Deeply Understood What It Means to Be Jewish": The Jewish Spark of Kirk Douglas

In his childhood, Issur Danielovitch helped his parents, Herschel and Bryna, in his father's business as a junk dealer in the United States, where his parents arrived from Belarus. As he grew older, he wanted to become a movie actor, and for that purpose, he changed his name to the one by which he was known until his last day – Kirk Douglas.

Douglas, who passed away last week at the age of 103, enlisted in the American army in his youth, where he fought towards the end of World War II and was also injured. After his release, he became a successful actor. Although he distanced himself from Judaism and even assimilated over the years, the Jewish spark within him never extinguished.

In 1953, Douglas visited Israel for the first time in a film production where he played a Jewish Holocaust survivor arriving in Israel. Douglas became acquainted with Israel and fell in love with it. Until his last day, he was a fervent supporter of Israel, both in various film roles and outside the acting world, through public statements and support in other fields. In the following decades, Douglas pushed the Hollywood industry to create various films about Israel, including movies about the establishment of the IDF and Operation Entebbe.

As mentioned, despite his assimilation and secular lifestyle, Douglas's Jewish spark never extinguished. In the last decades of his life, when his movie roles became fewer and he was injured in a helicopter accident, that Jewish spark reawakened, and he returned to the embrace of Judaism. In his autobiography, Climbing the Mountain, Douglas wrote that "the belief arose in me that I survived because I never deeply understood what it means to be Jewish." This awakening led Douglas to join a Torah study group with a group of rabbis after being released from the hospital following his injury, and afterwards, he even celebrated another Bar Mitzvah at the age of 83.

In the following years, Douglas suffered a stroke and found speaking difficult, yet he continued to study and even inspired other Jews, including his son and grandson. His son Michael began working to unite the Jewish diaspora, and his grandson Dylan also celebrated a late Bar Mitzvah – which he did in Israel. When visiting the University of Southern California, Douglas explained to the students why they should be inspired by the Bible.

"I think I've become a better person," Douglas told them. "I give more of myself and what I have, so I think everything happens for a reason... I believe that Hashem answers all prayers – even if sometimes His answer is no."