Tarin Shalfy
1995-2019
Tarin was born on October 25, 1995, in Tel Aviv, where she grew up and lived all her years.
She was the eldest granddaughter of Sarah and Yeshayahu Shalfy, Holocaust survivors from Poland. When Tarin was about eight years old, her little sister, Avigail, was born.
Tarin studied at the School of Nature, Environment and Society, and then went to Ironi Alef High School for the Arts and chose a theater major. This choice of an art school was not surprising, since from an early age, Tarin showed artistic leanings. She studied piano and flute at the Conservatory of Music and sang in the Bat-Kol Choir. At 12 and a half, she participated in the musical Fiddler on the Roof at the Cameri Theater as Shprintze, the fourth daughter of Tevye the Dairyman (played by Natan Datner), and as a member of the Bat-Kol Choir she performed at the Israeli Opera (including Carmen and Der Rosenkavalier).
In 2010, at 15, Tarin played a small role in Nir Bergman’s film Inner Grammar.
As part of her theater studies at Ironi Alef High School, Tarin participated in several plays: The Dybbuk (by Ansky), Friends Talk About Jesus (by Amos Kenan) and Party Time (by Harold Pinter).
Tarin did not settle for “just” acting and she also expressed her other artistic talents: writing, composing, and directing. She edited and directed The Binding (Ha-Akeda, sketches and songs by Hanoch Levin) and even wrote music for plays: The Binding, The Dybbuk and Popper (by Hanoch Levin).
In her senior high school year, Tarin participated in a delegation on behalf of her school’s theater department at the Shakespeare School Festival – in Cardiff, Wales, and appeared in an excerpt from The Merry Wives of Windsor.
When Tarin watched the film Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams, her passion to study medical clowning was invoked. She was excited about the idea of combining the comedic with the therapeutic. She enrolled in the medical clowning school run by Talia Safra at the Kibbutzim Seminary and studied there at the time of her military service.
Upon graduating from her medical clowning studies and her discharge from the military, Tarin volunteered as a medical clown in the pediatric ward at Boston Medical Center, in Massachusetts, USA where she spread light and joy in the hearts of the hospitalized children.
Upon her return to Israel, Tarin was admitted to study in Yoram Loewenstein’s acting studio.
From the very beginning of her career in the acting studio, Tarin was regarded with great promise. In her first year of study, she received a round of applause for her personal work ‘The People of the Red Nose’, which she wrote, directed and for which she also composed the music, as part of a presentation of personal works. At the beginning of the second year of school, in the first production that the class put on, Tarin played the lead role – Bertha, in the play ‘Bertha’s Piano’ written by Moti Averbuch.
In the scholarship competitions, Tarin won a scholarship for performing the monologue ‘The Shrink’ in the FREE STYLE competition and for performing Natasha’s monologue in the play ‘Three Sisters’ by Chekhov in a classical plays monologue competition.
In April 2018, in the second half of the second school year, Tarin was diagnosed with metastatic sarcoma-type cancer. The disease forced her to leave school for treatments (chemotherapy and radiation), but in her heart, even during this torturous time, she resolved to channel the treatment period into artistic creation.
For several months, amidst the treatments, nausea, severe pain, and physical weakness, she wrote a monodrama – a solo show called ‘Moving the Sun’ in which she recounted her struggle with cancer. The play, directed by Hannan Ishay Ronen, participated in TheTheatronetto Festival (An Israeli Theater festival that exhibits monodramas) in April 2019.
The jury – Actor Rami Baruch, set designer Roni Toren and author Michal Snunit – awarded the show the first place. The judges’ reasons for the choice stated: “For daring and virtuoso performance that excels in passion, brilliance, humor, sensitivity, simplicity and humanity that pours from it and reaches the hearts.”
After the festival, the play continued to run in the Cameri Theater Cafe, in packed halls where each audience gave her a long standing ovation.
In the last year of her life, during the treatments, Tarin first met her father, Hanoch Reim and her six sisters on her father’s side: Stav, Rina, Talia, Mia, Naomi and Nina Reim.
Although the relationships lasted only one year, they were deep and meaningful to all.
On Friday, August 30, 2019, about two months before her 24th birthday, Tarin passed away in the oncology ward of Sheba Hospital, surrounded by her loved ones.
On the afternoon of September 1st, 2019, Tarin was laid to rest in a civil ceremony at the ‘Right Rest’ cemetery in Kfar Saba.
She left behind a mother – Vardit, a sister – Avigail, a beloved partner – Udi Ronen, Paula the dog, who gave Tarin lots of happy moments in her last days, uncles, aunts, cousins, other family members, and a huge number of very close and loving friends.
