Tzipi Shavit is an entertainer, actor, singer, and one of Israel’s most beloved children’s performers of all time. Shavit spent her military service with the Southern Command Unit’s entertainment troupe. Once completing her service, she began appearing in a range of films and variety shows. In 1971 she took part in Jumbo – a variety special put together by legendary producer Avraham Deshe (aka Pashanel), where she performed one of her greatest hits, Everyone’s Gone to the Jumbo (‘kulam halchu la’jambo’). Her other hits include, among others, Barbapapa (‘Barba’aba’), I’m Ginger (‘ani jinji’), and I was the Smallest Boy in Class (‘hayiti hayeled hachi katan bakita’).
Shavit has starred in countless children’s programmes and stage shows including Hopa Hey (‘allez hop’), Tsipitput, Bilbi (Hebrew adaptation of Pippi Longstocking), Tzipi Tzipi Bang Bang, Thumbelina (featuring the songs of Danny Kaye), Nonstop Tsipi (‘Tsipi lelo hafsaka’), All in the Family (‘hakol nishar ba’mishpacha’), Festigal [an annual Hannukah stage musical – EE], and many more. Shavit also teamed up with fellow actor, Nathan Dattner, with whom she made three massively successful, direct-to-DVD shows based on the timeless Israeli children’s book, 100 First Songs (‘100 shirim rishonim’). In the Hebrew version of The Smurfs, Shavit was the voice of Smurfette.
Alongside her expansive children’s CV, Shavit has also starred in many shows for an older demographic including Sponge and the City and Adults Only. On television, she hosted all four series of the Israeli iteration of reality TV programme, The Biggest Loser.
Highlights of her film acting credits include Fish, Football and Girls (Uri Zohar, 1968), Take off (Uri Zohar, 1969), The Big Dig (Ephraim Kishon, 1969), Lupo! (Menahem Golan, 1970), Nahtche and the General (George Obadiah, 1972), Schwartz: The Brave Detective (Ami Artzi & Lloyd Kaufman, 1973), and April Fool’s (aka April Fool) (Menahem Zilberman, 1989).
In 2020, Shavit took part in Israel’s annual Independence Day state ceremony where she was given the honour of lighting a torch.
