Peter Sellers and Israel

By Photograph by Allan Warren by Keraunoscopia - Derived from File:Peter Sellers Allan Warren.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26604037

Yesterday I was working in Jerusalem planning a walking tour in Jaffa St, and I met a lovely couple whose surname is Marks.

I casually mentioned that my maternal grandmother was a Marks. His eyes lit up and then he asked a question I’ve never ever been asked before.

“Any relation to Peter Sellers?”

I laughed and then I said yes. My grandmother Amelia was first cousins with Peter Sellers’ mother, Agnes “Peg” Marks. That makes me (technically) his second cousin once removed — a distant but real family link from our shared British-Jewish roots in London.

Small world moments like that always make me smile. But this one got me thinking deeper. Peter Sellers wasn’t just the comic genius behind Inspector Clouseau and Dr. Strangelove. He was also a proud supporter of Israel — someone who visited the country, wrote a hilariously affectionate poem about it, and stood up publicly when it mattered most. So I thought I’d share the story here on the blog.

Peter Sellers grew up in a family steeped in Jewish heritage on his mother’s side. Peg Marks came from a colourful line of music-hall performers with Portuguese Sephardi roots. I think a shared ancestor of ours was a founding member of the Bevis Marks synagogue in London around 1701.

Peter himself wasn't religious, but he never hid his background — and when he came to Israel, he showed real warmth and solidarity.

A few years before the Six-Day War, Peter visited Israel. While he was in Haifa he sat down and wrote a letter to the English-Jewish actress Miriam Karlin. In it he included a mock-heroic ode to Tel Aviv, written in the deliberately clumsy style of the Scottish poet William McGonagall (famous for his hilariously bad verse). He signed it “Sellers McGonagall — Poet and Rabbi.”

The poem begins:

“Oh beautiful Tel Aviv, situated in Israel

To sing its praise, I must not fail…”

It’s pure Sellers — funny, affectionate, and completely tongue-in-cheek. Reading it always makes me chuckle. Here was one of the world’s biggest stars, sitting in Haifa, poking fun at himself while clearly feeling real fondness for the place.

Then came '67. In the tense days before the Six-Day War, Peter was among the artists who contributed generously to Israel’s emergency funds. And just days after Israel’s stunning victory, on 11 June, he flew to California to appear at the massive “Rally for the Survival of Israel” at the Hollywood Bowl. The amphitheatre was packed. On stage with him were Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Joey Bishop and other stars. Peter stood there and publicly pledged his support alongside them. It was a powerful show of solidarity at a time when the Jewish world was still catching its breath.

For me, these stories are more than celebrity trivia. They’re reminders of how interconnected our Jewish stories are — from the Marks family kitchen in London to the streets of Tel Aviv, from 1960s London to modern Israel. Peter could have kept quiet about his heritage or his feelings about the Jewish State. Instead he showed up, wrote a silly poem, opened his wallet, and stood on a stage when it counted.

Finally, one my favourite Peter Sellers lines in Dr Strangelove:

“I thought to myself, our fellows hitting Russian radar cover in twenty minutes, dropping all their stuff, I'd better tell you, because if they do, it'll cause a bit of a stink what?”

(In Britain we actually used to speak like this)

Shabbat Shalom and Am Yisrael Chai,

Yoni Lemel

wowisraeltours.com