Michael Zegen is known for playing complex Jewish dads (and, most recently, a not-so-nice Jewish boy Zev in “Too Much”).
There’s his iconic Joel Maisel, husband of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” herself, who, throughout the show’s five seasons, goes from petulant, cheating villain to redeemable ally. In “Notice to Quit,” he played Jewish dad Andy Singer, stumbling through the city trying to keep his life together while watching his daughter, who is about to leave town with her mother.
But now, Zegen, 46, is a real-life Jewish dad, and we’re sure that the menschy actor will do a much, much better job than all the fictional Jewish fathers he’s played.
Zegen and his wife, actress, singer and Broadway star Jennifer Damiano, welcomed their first child, a daughter named Oona Rose, on January 3, according to Damiano’s Instagram, who wrote their daughter was born “under a full moon in New York City.” How auspicious!
“It’s been nice knowing ya!” she wrote of the sweet little one, sharing pictures of the infant with her and her husband, as well as photos of the couple’s dog peering into their daughter’s stroller, and of walks in the park overlooking the New York skyline.
The couple got married in January of last year, in a Jewish ceremony in Greenwich Village. The simcha was officiated by Rabbi Jennifer Schlosberg of the Glen Rock Jewish Center. Schlosberg now leads the New Jersey synagogue where Zegen was bar mitzvah-ed — a picture from the event can be seen in “Notice to Quit” — and where his parents still attend.
The couple gave their daughter a beautiful and meaningful name. The name Oona is a very sweete Irish name, which means “lamb,” and is notably the name of Charlie Chaplin’s wife, Oona O’Neill, and his granddaughter — actress Oona Chaplin (“Game of Thrones,” “Avatar”). Rose is a classic, beautiful name, and is possibly an ode to Zegen’s grandmother, Szosana, whose name means “rose” in Hebrew.
“My grandmother, Szoszana, escaped Ukraine just before the Nazis arrived by hiding in the woods. My grandfather, Aaron, escaped to Belarus,” Zegen told the Wall Street Journal back in 2019.
In an interview with Kveller, Zegen said his grandmother celebrated her 100th birthday back in 2024. “Hearing how my grandmother escaped from Ukraine through the woods to Russia — those were my bedtime stories when I would sleep over at their house. They lived a few blocks from where I lived. So I grew up with them literally right down the block. That was really special,” he said.
We wish Zegen and Damiano a very hearty mazel tov (and as much sleep as they can possibly get)!
