Guest Blog: To your question, Quentin

Quentin Tarantino arrived in Tel Aviv last month for the glorious premiere of Inglorious Basterds. "I am here to find out how the Jewish people might feel when they see my new film," he was quoted saying. Well, Quentin, without further ado, to your question. (Or: this is what a Jew might feel when she sees your film.)

Of Inglorious Basterds. Were Richard Goldstone (of the UN Human Rights Council) to walk out of your movie, just a few days after releasing his bashing report against the Jewish State, he'd probably be saying to his wife, "See darlin', Quentin is as right as I was. These Jews are all about 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.'"

Only while Goldstone has accused the Jewish state of purposely targeting the Gaza civilians during Operation Cast Lead, you, Quentin, have been slightly less imaginative, and contemplated a Jewish-American commando targeting the Nazis. Indeed, your ability to fathom and bring to life a concept as profound as Inglorious Basterds suggests that your decade's research of the Jewish psyche does deserve some serious acclaim.

For, in a two-worded, typoed nick-for-a-nation, you have plunged a finger into one of our nation's deepest, bloodiest wounds.

You, much like us, have pondered: Is it possible that the moral compass guiding the Jews nowadays is being oriented by the memories of their atrocious past? Could it possibly be that Jews, haunted by centuries of persecution yet currently empowered as a free and independent nation, are abusing this power today to take revenge for an inglorious history?

We the Jews, Quentin, lose sleep over these questions, as we see our Shteitel-born grandparents and parents, the last living survivors of the Holocaust, gradually disappear; and be replaced with a generation of suntanned, tight-fisted toddlers who learn how to hold an Uzi before learning how to pronounce their grandparents' place of birth….

It's the curse of inheritance, that the inheriting generation barely remembers the founders' purpose; and that, with the spirit of innovation and change, the inheritors can misinterpret the original message into something monstrously different.

And so to your question, Quentin… We're afraid you're right, and that yes, we are capable of taking inglorious revenge, and perhaps not just in the movies, and not just against the Nazis.

Of Jews and Ticking Bombs. How does a Jew feel when she sees Jews wrapped up in explosives? In the realm of psychology this is called cognitive dissonance, Quentin.

Even if it's about killing the Fuhrer himself, Jews depicted as suicide bombers is something that is extremely painful and angering for us to perceive.

Of Colonel Landa. With his omnipresent personality, you have possibly created one of our biggest nightmares.

The camera vertically tilting from the Colonel's face to his shoes down to the wooden floor further to the Dreyfus family members hiding in the basement very well captures the kind of fear we may feel when we imagine someone like the Colonel.

A language-chameleon who finds the upper hand in every social gathering; a self-made detective who puts together pieces of evidence that are barely distinguishable to the human eye; and a man bold enough to nonchalantly explain how another human being can be easily paralleled with a rat - God help us if this kind of a person does ever (again) become real.

Of Aldo Raine. Why an Appalachian, Tennessee-born soldier, to rally a bunch of blood-thirsty Jews around the flag, Quentin?

Why bestow upon a non-Jew the cleansing gratification of revenge ("This may well have been my masterpiece"), if the rest of the puzzle is mainly concerned with the Jews?

And finally (again), of Revengeful Jews. It is disturbing, Quentin, it is mind-blowing, to put onto the screen so boldly and elegantly a group of Jews that so systematically and hungrily seek revenge.

We, the Jews… we think of ourselves as a different breed. We're pure. We're ethical. We have been Chosen. Blast a bunch of Nazi officers with guns? Beat their leaders to death with baseball clubs? Slash their scalps with our bare hands? Is that us!?

Might have we become like the rest of nations? Indeed, that is our biggest fear, Quentin. To turn from the beacon of all nations, much like to the rest of 'em. Once again, Quentin, you've hit a home run. Good job, Tarantino, for kicking us real hard in the gut.