'Stranger Things' Gelman guests on 'Eretz Nehederet'

Stranger Things star Brett Gelman put his rich comedic talent to use to support Israel during wartime by performing in a sketch on the comedy show, Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country), which aired Tuesday night on Channel 12. 

Since the beginning of the war against Hamas, Eretz Nehederet has featured several sketches in English that have gone viral, reaching millions all around the world. These included two that lampooned the BBC’s coverage of the conflict and its embrace of the terror group Hamas. 

In an Eretz Nehederet sketch starring Michael Rapaport, the American celebrity visitor to Israel poked fun at US university presidents while playing Dumbledore, in a Harry Potter-themed skit. The university heads had said in a congressional hearing that calls for genocide against Jews on campus were only a problem “depending on the context.”

One of the funniest and most popular Eretz Nehederet skits featured two clueless university students in America gushing over a Hamas terrorist, who tells them that he will throw them from a rooftop if they ever visit Gaza. 

Gelman also played Martin on Fleabag

In the sketch, Gelman appears with the two Eretz Nehederet regulars, Liat Harlev and Tamir Bar, who reprise their roles as cluelessly woke pro-Hamas university students that they performed so successfully in a previous episode. We see a village, with the title, "Bethlehem, Judea, Year 0." Then we are inside a small house there, as Jesus' parents, Joseph and Miriam, sit admiring their newborn baby. Gelman, playing a professor -- an inspired idea -- enters with the two students, announcing they are "three wise men from the West," prompting a correction from the female student, who says they are, "three wise persons."

The three visitors are from Berkeley and aren't impressed that three wise men from the east already dropped by and told the new parents that their son will be king of the Jews. The professor laughs, telling the parents that, "Jews will only come here 1,948 years from now."

Joseph insists they are Jews, but the professor tells them they are Palestinians who practice Islam, two words the couple have never heard. The professor confuses everyone even further by telling them the baby will be murdered by the Jews when he grows up.

The students wonder how the Jews could kill someone when there are no Jews, and ask if the Palestinians will kill him. "No Palestinian would ever hurt anyone, especially not Hamas." The professor promises their next class will be on "how the Jews could kill someone without even existing," and they head off to visit Santa Claus in "North Palestine," leaving a befuddled Miriam to say, "Jesus!"

Gelman is best known for playing the eccentric, Russian-speaking journalist Murray Bauman on the Netflix series, Stranger Things. He also portrayed Martin, the heroine’s deliriously malicious brother-in-law on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s series, Fleabag. 

Since the outbreak of the war, Gelman has visited Israel and condemned the Hamas massacre, supporting Israel on social media and at the march in Washington, DC in November. 

But long before the war, Gelman felt a connection to Israel and proposed to his fiancée, Ari Dayan, in Jerusalem on a visit last April. 

Gelman is one of a growing number of US celebrities who have visited Israel to show their support in recent weeks, including Jerry Seinfeld and Debra Messing.