Shira Haas

Shira Haas (Hebrew: שירה האס; born (1995-05-11)11 May 1995) is an Israeli actress. She initially gained national prominence for her roles in local film and television, having won two Israeli Ophir Awards out of five nominations since 2014. In 2020, she gained international acclaim for her role in the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. For this performance, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In the same year, Haas won the Tribeca Film Festival Award for Best International Actress for her performance in the Israeli drama film Asia (2020). Haas was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to a secular Jewish family. Her parents, both Israeli-born Jews (also known as "Sabra"), are of Ashkenazi Jewish (Polish-Jewish, Hungarian-Jewish, and Czech-Jewish) descent. Her grandparents are both Holocaust survivors; her grandfather had been imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. In Hebrew, her first name literally means either the noun "singing" or "her song". When she was one year old, her family moved to the city of Hod HaSharon, Israel, where she grew up with her older sister and brother. At age two, Haas was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and recovered two years later after a series of severe treatments. On 3 August 2022, her mother Ariela "Leah" Haas died of cancer, after weeks in hospice, at age 61. She attended the Thelma Yellin High School of Arts in Givatayim, Israel, majoring in theatre, before completing a short period of volunteer service in the Israel Defense Forces' military theatre. In late April 2020, she joined a virtual ceremony celebrating Israel's 72nd Independence Day, and sent birthday wishes to Israel with fellow Jewish actors Ben Platt and Josh Malina.