Jewish ‘Stranger Things’ Star Noah Schnapp Prays at Western Wall During Visit to Israel

Shiryn Ghermezian

Noah Schnapp. Photo: Milliebobbybrownnn via Wikimedia Commons

Jewish actor Noah Schnapp from the Netflix series Stranger Things is currently touring Israel and photos shared on social media show him praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem among his many stops across the country.

The 18-year-old New York native also shared on his Instagram Story a photo of him at the Western Wall wearing a kippah on his head and phylacteries, which is called tefillin in Hebrew, wrapped on his arms. He wrote in the caption, “learning so much about my culture. So inspiring.” In another photo posted on his Instagram story that was taken in Tel Aviv, the actor captioned the shot: “In love with this place.”

Schnapp took a tour of Jerusalem that was organized by Aish Global, and accompanying him was Israeli-American entrepreneur and blogger Moti Ankari and producer Rachel Katsner. On Wednesday, Ankari shared photos on his Instagram stories of the group visiting the Dead Sea.

Schnapp, who has Russian Jewish ancestry on his father’s side and Moroccan Jewish roots on his mother’s, said in a 2020 interview that he had his bar mitzvah in Israel. He played a young chef of Israeli and Palestinian heritage in the 2019 movie Abe and a shepherd boy who helped smuggle Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied France in the 2020 movie Waiting For Anya. His first film role was in the Steven Spielberg-directed movie Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks, and he also voiced the character of Charlie Brown in The Peanuts Movie. Both films were released in 2015.