Baruch Agadati
Encyclopedia
Baruch Agadati was a Russian-Israeli classical ballet dancer, choreographer, painter, and film producer and director. He is considered a legendary figure in Israeli culture
Culture of Israel
The culture of Israel developed long before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 and combines the heritage of secular and religious lives. Much of the diversity in Israel's culture comes from the diversity of its population...

.

Biography

Baruch Kaushanski (later Agadati) was born to a Jewish family in Bessarabia, and grew up in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

. He immigrated to Palestine in the early 1900s. In Palestine, he was known for performing Jewish folk dance
Folk dance
The term folk dance describes dances that share some or all of the following attributes:*They are dances performed at social functions by people with little or no professional training, often to traditional music or music based on traditional music....

s in an expressionist style.

Agadati attended the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem from 1910–14. When World War I started in 1914, he was in Russia visiting his parents and was unable to return to Palestine. He remained there and studied classical ballet
Classical ballet
Classical Ballet is the most formal of the ballet styles, it adheres to traditional ballet technique. There are variations relating to area of origin, such as Russian ballet, French ballet, British ballet and Italian ballet...

, joining the dance troupe of the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater. In 1919, he returned to Palestine. In 1920, he moved to the Neve Tzedek
Neve Tzedek
Neve Tzedek is a neighborhood located in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa. For years, the neighborhood prospered as Tel Aviv, the first modern Hebrew city, grew up around it...

 neighborhood in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, where he lived until his death.He is buried in Trumpeldor cemetery
Trumpeldor cemetery
Trumpeldor cemetery , often referred to as the "Old Cemetery," is a historic cemetery on Trumpeldor Street in Tel Aviv, Israel. The cemetery covers 10.6 acres, and contains approximately 5,000 graves.-History:...

 in Tel Aviv.

Dance and film career

After Agadati's return to Palestine in 1919, he gave solo dance recitals and became one of the pioneers of cinema in Israel. Agadati purchased cinematographer Yaakov Ben Dov's film archives in 1934, when Ben Dov retired from filmmaking. He and his brother Yitzhak used it to start the AGA
AGA
-Medicine:* Adequate, Appropriate or Average for Gestational Age, referring to prenatal growth rate* Anti-gliadin antibodies* Androgenetic alopecia* Aspartylglucosaminidase-Business:* AGA , Autogen Gasaccumulator AG, 1920's German car company...

 Newsreel. He directed the early Zionist film entitled This is the Land (1935).

In the 1920s and 1930s, he was known for organizing Tel Aviv Purim
Purim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...

 balls.

In 2005, he was voted the 200th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

External links

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