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‘Stranger Things’ star Brett Gelman proposes to singer girlfriend Ari Dayan in Jerusalem
(JTA) — The Western Wall and Jerusalem skyline provided the backdrop for actor Brett Gelman’s proposal to his now-fiancée musician Ari Dayan.
The couple, together since 2019, announced their engagement Friday on Instagram.
“SHE SAID YES!!!” Gelman shared. “Can’t wait for Mr. Gelman to become Mr. Dayan,” Dayan wrote.
Gelman, 46, is best known for his roles as the conspiracy theorist and private investigator Murray Bauman on Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and as the insufferable Martin on the BBC comedy “Fleabag.” He grew up in Highland Park, Illinois, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago.
Dayan, meanwhile, is a singer and performance artist from California. She has posted videos previously from Tel Aviv and has also shared about her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor whom she said inspired her song “Sara.”
The pair have collaborated in the past, including for the music video for Dayan’s 2022 song “Love” and in a Hanukkah singalong (with Dayan singing in Israeli-accented Hebrew) taped in their Los Angeles home and posted to Instagram.
In a joint interview with Ladygunn in 2022, Gelman called the “Love” video a “total equal collaboration.”
“Ari is a comic genius and her previous videos hadn’t showcased that side of her,” Gelman said. “Plus, the song itself has a celebratory tone to it.”
“We found our mutual voice pretty quickly,” Dayan said. “It has a lot of both of us in it both conceptually and tonally. I find a lot of joy at laughing at myself and I think Brett does too. This is a love letter to that part of ourselves.”
In an interview with W Magazine last year, Gelman said his Jewish background is the motivation behind his approach to the world both in terms of humor and empathy. Coining the term “Jaddy” to refer to a “sexy, Jewish, masculine man,” he said his style role models are actors like Elliott Gould and Richard Dreyfuss who dispel the stereotype of nerdy Jewish men.
Gelman will appear alongside Natalie Portman in the upcoming Apple TV series “Lady in the Lake,” focused on the disappearances and deaths of a Jewish girl and a Black woman who were treated with unequal media attention in the 1960s.
Gelman was previously married, from 2015 to 2018, to the Jewish performance artist Janicza Bravo with whom he collaborated on a film called “Lemon” about a washed-up Jewish actor.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.