Will the Israeli hyrax be labeled a pest?
Moran Atias is hardly a newcomer to Hollywood. The Haifa-born actress has lived in Los Angeles for many years - even becoming a US citizen last year. As a teenager, she began modeling in Europe and later appeared in several Italian films. In 2008, she was cast as Inez in the Starz series Crash, which ran for two seasons. She then appeared in the FX show Tyrant, which was written and directed by Israeli Gideon Raff. Earlier this year, Atias appeared in the premiere season of Fox show The Resident, which is slated to return this fall. And next year, she will star as the lead actress in the buzzedabout NBC show The Village. That certainly won’t be the last we hear of the prolific Atias.
Ori Pfeffer
You’ve almost definitely seen Ori Pfeffer recently. Whether in a TV show or film, the Israeli actor and native of Jerusalem has been particularly prolific in recent years. Pfeffer’s first role outside of Israel came in 2005, when he had a small role in the Steven Spielberg film Munich, and in 2008 he made an appearance in the Ben Stiller flick,
In 2015, Pfeffer played the lead role on the USA series Dig, which was canceled after one season. And in 2016, he appeared in the award-winning Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson. Last year, the actor appeared in The Hitman’s Bodyguard, alongside Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, and earlier this year, he starred in the action film 211 with Nicholas Cage. And Pfeffer is still staying extremely busy – in September you can see him in the Netflix original film The Angel, about an Egyptian who spied for Israel, and he’s currently filming another Netflix project, The Spy, a miniseries starring Sacha Baron Cohen about Israeli agent Eli Cohen.
Odeya Rush
Odeya Rush, a native of Haifa, may be just 21 years old. But the model and actress has appeared in a slew of projects already, including guest starring in Law and Order and Curb Your Enthusiasm when she was just a child. In 2014, Rush – whose family moved to the US when she was nine years old – had a role in The Giver, starring Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges. In 2015, she landed the starring role in The Goosebumps film. And last year, Rush could be seen as part of the cast of the critically-acclaimed Lady Bird, which was nominated for several Academy Awards. Soon enough you’ll be able to catch Rush in Dumplin’, a musical comedy starring Jennifer Aniston. And all this before she even turns 22.
Angel Bonanni
Angel Bonanni may have been born in Uruguay, but he moved to Israel at a young age, and got his first big breaks in Israeli TV. Bonanni appeared in a long series of Israeli programs, and in 2015, he starred in the Keshet program False Flag, which received much critical acclaim, appeared at festivals around the world and was picked up by Fox. Since then, Bonanni has appeared in a series of Hollywood productions, including playing Yoni Netanyahu in the 2018 film
Entebbe. Last year, the actor starred in the AXN series
Abstentia, and he appeared in four episodes of the 10-part Fox miniseries Shots Fired. Currently, Bonanni can be seen in the Audience Network’s Condor, which just wrapped up its first season on the air.
Shira Haas
To many Israelis, Shira Haas will always be Ruchami in Shtisel, the young haredi teenager who tries to escape her troubled family with a troubled marriage. But Haas, a 23-year-old native of Hod Hasharon, has slowly but surely been making her mark on Hollywood as well. In 2015, she played a role in Natalie Portman’s A Tale of Love and Darkness, and in 2017, Haas starred in the film The Zookeeper’s Wife, set during the Holocaust. Earlier this year, Haas appeared in Mary Magdalene, alongside Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix. In addition to her many other film and TV projects, Haas just wrapped up the filming of Esau, the adaptation of a Meir Shalev novel starring Harvey Keitel.
Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin suggested changing the legal status of the hyraxes to pests on Thursday.
If the legal change in status passes, the Israeli rock hyrax will be outside the protection of the law. The Ministry of Environmental Protection invites the public to comment on the issue.
The decision is due to the spread of cutaneous leishmaniasis (“Aleppo boils”) in Israel, which the hyrax helps spread.
Although rodent-like, rock hyraxes (shafan sela in Hebrew, meaning “rock rabbit”) are taxonomically more closely related to elephants. They are legally protected under the status of a wild animal and are not to be harmed.
The change in legal status is suggested to last for a threeyear period and is meant to aid in the reduction of the number of rock hyraxes, in the hope of diminishing the number of Aleppo boil cases.
Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is caused by female sand flies biting animals, for example rock hyraxes or dogs, and infecting them. Humans bitten by an infected animal can likewise become infected.
Rock hyraxes are found countrywide and do not fear humans. As their name suggests, they enjoy living in or near rocks and are excellent at making their homes in construction waste dumps. They are also excellent climbers and will devour private gardens as well as wild plants. Unfortunately, this also means that they live in closer and closer contact with humans.
In a document written by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2011, guidelines are provided on how to keep rock hyraxes at bay. They include building better fences near human communities and making sure they won’t be able to invade construction sites to nest there. Such efforts are costly and there is little indication that they have been implemented.
The concern of animal lovers and scientists is that the removal of the legal protection currently enjoyed by the hyraxes would mean that an open hunting season would be declared on them for three years with no way of knowing if their population would survive.
Critics of hunting as a means of population control point to the Arab world, where rampant hunting diminished the wildlife populations in great numbers, remarking that this is a fate Israel should seek to avoid.