Lior Ashkenazi Lior Ashkenazi Lior Ashkenazi (; born 28 December 1969) is an Israeli screen and stage actor. Ashkenazi was born in Ramat Gan, and grew up in its Neveh Yehoshua neighborhood. His parents are Sephardi Jewish emigrants from Istanbul, Turkey, who moved to Israel in 1964. His father, Shmuel, worked as a printer. His mother, Victoria, was a housewife. His parents spoke Ladino at home, and it was his first language. At the age of 16, in the wake of problems in school, he moved to Kibbutz Regavim. He served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces. He studied acting
Racism in Israel where Sephardi and Mizrahi students were sometimes excluded or segregated. In 2010, the Israeli supreme court sent a strong message against discrimination in a case involving the Slonim Hassidic sect of the Ashkenazi, ruling that segregation between Ashkenazi and Sephardi students in a school is illegal. They argue that they seek "to maintain an equal level of religiosity, not from racism". Responding to the charges, the Slonim Haredim invited Sephardi girls to school, and added in a statement: "All along, we said it's not about race, but the High Court went out against our rabbis, and therefore we went to