On another secret life – Yossi Melman and Moshe Shaverdi in Haaretz:

‘Last week marked the 30th day since the death of Chaim Topol, one of Israel’s greatest actors. His wife, Galia, and their three children are probing their memories – mainly for their own sake – trying to recall what they know about his secret side. They don’t know much, but what they do know doesn’t leave much room for doubt. Two of the children, Adi and Omer, as well as Galia, were interviewed for this article.’

(…)

‘They vividly remember his liaison for the secret missions: a good friend, Zvi Malkin, from the Mossad. “Zvika always showed up in disguise, came through the backyard so he wouldn’t be seen, and then came into our apartment,” Adi recalls. “‘You don’t have a key, so how did you get in?’ I asked him once, and he replied in his nasal tone: ‘You call that a lock?’” Galia adds: “What always drove Chaimke was an itch for adventure, combined with courage. Nobody was better for things that weren’t talked about.”’

(…)

‘Not just a daring Mossad man, Malkin was also an artist in his soul. After retiring from the agency, in 1976, he moved to New York, where, as Peter Zvi Malkin, he focused on a successful career in sculpture and painting.
Indeed, beyond the sense of mission and a belief in the justness of the cause, love of art was a common thread linking Topol and Malkin. “They were both actors,” says Omer Malkin, the spy’s son. “One acted on the stage and in films, the other did so clandestinely using false identities in the underground. So, in that odd and peculiar way, they had a lot in common.”’

(…)

‘In one operation, Malkin and Topol traveled to a European capital to install wiretapping devices in the embassy of an Arab country. An apartment next door was rented for this purpose. The mission, as Topol told Omer, was to drill a hole in the wall and insert eavesdropping equipment. If they were discovered, the two would say they were a dentist and his patient, and the requisite medical equipment was installed in the apartment.
Sure enough, the drilling attracted the attention of the embassy’s security people. Topol quickly seated himself in the dentist’s chair. “He opened his mouth,” Omer says smiling, “and Zvika, in the role of the dentist, started to operate the equipment. As befits two skilled actors, they put on a perfect show. The security men were persuaded and left.”’

(…)

‘Slonim recalls times when Topol helped him “get to people at high levels whom we wanted to reach in Syria. We did it in part via antiquities dealers. Syria is a country with many antiquities, some of them stolen, looted or bought. Some of the top people in the Syrian government and army dealt in antiquities.” Topol, he notes, was helpful in connecting the Israelis with local dealers.
Although those ties didn’t produce the desired results, Topol’s efforts attest to his deep commitment to Israel’s security. And he did it all without asking for anything in return. “Chaimke reminds me of Forrest Gump,” Galia says with a smile. “He was always at important crossroads where historic decisions for the country were made.”’

Read the article here.

Many years ago, during a festival in Australia, a well-known Irish author told me that many authors were ‘spooks.’

Apparently, some actors are spooks as well.

The stint with dentist and his patient is fantastic.

But the spying business is prone to romanticizing and mythologizing, even though Le Carré did his best to debunk the profession.