Sir Patrick Stewart Dies at 86; the Star Trek and X-Men Actor Filmed an Israeli Comedy and Studied Shylock in Jerusalem

Sir Patrick Stewart, the British actor best known as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” films, died on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86. His family said in a statement shared Thursday that he died after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” USA Today and the BBC reported.

Jewish Breaking News marked his death in an Instagram reel on Thursday that highlighted what it called his “surprising ties to Israel,” including an Israeli film role and his research for the role of Shylock. Those connections are documented in reporting by Ynet, The Jewish Chronicle and others from the time.

Source: Instagram, @jewishbreakingnews.

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The family’s statement and tributes

“He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all,” the statement said, according to USA Today. The BBC reported that he died “in the loving care of his wife.” He is survived by his third wife, the musician Sunny Ozell, and by two children from his first marriage, Daniel and Sophie.

Sir Ian McKellen, his longtime friend and “X-Men” co-star, who officiated at his 2013 wedding, called him “the most respected and beloved actor of his generation,” the BBC reported. William Shatner said Stewart brought “intelligence, grace and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did.” The Royal Shakespeare Company called him “one of the finest classical Shakespearean actors of his generation.”

From Yorkshire to the Enterprise

Stewart was born in 1940 in Mirfield, in Yorkshire, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, according to the BBC. He played Picard in more than 170 episodes of “The Next Generation” between 1987 and 1994 and in four feature films, and returned to the role in “Star Trek: Picard” in 2020. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010. Later in life he campaigned against domestic violence and became an ambassador for the charity Refuge in 2007, after witnessing his mother suffer violence at the hands of his father, the BBC reported. McKellen said his final film appearance will be as Professor X in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Shylock and a visit to Jerusalem

Stewart played Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” several times: at the Bristol Old Vic in 1964, in John Barton’s 1979 Royal Shakespeare Company production, and in Rupert Goold’s 2011 RSC staging, he told The Jewish Chronicle in May 2011. To prepare for the 2011 role, he spent time with Rabbi Lionel Blue and traveled to Israel. “What I did was to fly to Tel Aviv and spend four days largely in Jerusalem,” he said, describing the trip.

Asked about the play’s reputation for antisemitism, Stewart told the paper, “It is not antisemitic. In fact, it is an indictment of Christianity.” He said that for him, “Shylock’s hate and loathing comes from decades of personal abuse, historical abuse and mockery.” He also said the trial scene from “The Merchant of Venice” was the first Shakespeare he ever read aloud, in an English class at his secondary school.

An Israeli film role

In August 2012, Stewart arrived in Israel to film “Hunting Elephants,” a Hebrew-language heist comedy directed by Reshef Levy, after John Cleese, originally cast, withdrew because of heart problems, Ynet and The Jewish Chronicle reported. He played Michael Simpson, an English aristocrat drawn into a plot by pensioners to rob a bank. At a Tel Aviv press conference, he recalled his earlier four-day visit and said he was glad to return “not as a tourist but as part of an Israeli movie production,” and that he hoped to be remembered as funny, Ynet reported. The film opened in Israeli theaters on July 4, 2013.

Moses and the Holocaust

Stewart voiced Pharaoh Seti, Moses’s adoptive father, in DreamWorks’ 1998 animated film “The Prince of Egypt,” an adaptation of the Book of Exodus. In 2018 he narrated “My Memory of Us,” a video game by the Polish studio Juggler Games about two children in a city inspired by Warsaw under German occupation in World War II, PC Gamer reported. The studio’s chief executive, Mikołaj Pawłowski, said the story was personal because the developers’ grandparents “faced similar oppression” during the war.

Sources: Jewish Breaking News on Instagram, Oct. 29, 2026; USA Today, “Patrick Stewart’s cause of death revealed after actor dies at 86,” Oct. 29, 2026; BBC News, “Sir Ian McKellen leads tributes to ‘beloved actor’ Sir Patrick Stewart,” Oct. 29, 2026; AP News, “Patrick Stewart, actor best known for ‘Star Trek’ and ‘X-Men,’ dies at 86”; The Jewish Chronicle, “Interview: Patrick Stewart,” May 12, 2011; The Jewish Chronicle, “Patrick Stewart in Israel to film heist movie,” Aug. 10, 2012; Ynet News, “Actor Patrick Stewart in Israel,” Aug. 11, 2012; PC Gamer, “Patrick Stewart will narrate My Memory of Us,” Aug. 14, 2018; Wikipedia, “Hunting Elephants”; Wikipedia, “The Prince of Egypt”.