Alan Mandell (born Albert Mandell on December 27, 1927) is a Canadian-American actor known for playing Rabbi Marshak in the Coen Brothers' 2009 film A Serious Man. With several decades of experience as a stage actor, he is especially acclaimed as an interpreter of the works of Samuel Beckett. Albert Mandell was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario in 1927. He acted on stage in both Canada and the United States, building a reputation in San Francisco's theater scene in the 1950s. In 1968 he legally changed his given name to Alan to avoi…