Comments on: Inglourious Basterds strikes a chord in Israel

By: Gaston

Gaston — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:30:04 +0000

Although hating Nazis and loving Tarantino, but this movie most definitely fails to be therapy, revenge or blunt entertainment. It lacks sensitivity to the theme holocaust and to the victims.

If you hail the senseless brutality on screen then you are not better than the people in Germany of the 1930s who have supported those crimes. Then history has taught you nothing and you did not get the lesson that we have to watch out that such things never happen again.

The real issue is not about revenge or creating the cinematic illusion of revenge, it is the need to stay sane and to prevent hatred and cruelty in all forms and places. “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next”; if you find those scenes mentioned above funny you should really ask yourself in what way you are better than those nazis.

By: Maskil

Maskil — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:55:56 +0000

@leo solomon. Thanks for raising that. I mentioned the book in my blog post (see above), but sadly it’s now out of print. 2nd-hand copies are still obtainable, though. Forged in Fury

By: Yitzchak

Yitzchak — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:25:17 +0000

The main reason I want to see this movie is precisely to see Nazi heads bashed in and scalped….

By: Maskil

Maskil — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:25:46 +0000

I guess we need to ask whether it’s good entertainment or not. It has no value as “therapy”, because this is quite simply not the way things were. Cheer all you want, but at the end of the day “they” won and we lost.

Fighting the 2nd World War All Over Again
http://blog.maskil.info/2009/09/fighting-2nd-world-war-again/

By: leo solomon

leo solomon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:39:29 +0000

For those who don’t know- some years ago Michael Elkin ( member of the o.s.s.,kibbutznick,broadcaster for the bbc world service ,columnnist for the jerusalem report magazine)wrote a book called” Forged in Fury” which dealt with a group of jewish :survivors ,soldiers from britain’s jewish brigade and jewish soldiers from the american army -who did seek revenge for the holocaust.

By: Larry In L.A.

Larry In L.A. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:15:12 +0000

Well David, your cinematic sentiments aside, I deeply, deeply resent fans of Alex Rodriguez’s home runs being equated with the Kach movement. And at this time of year, how could you? This will be unsettling to me every time I watch Alex (or any Yankee, for that matter) hit a ‘tater over the next (hopefully) three series in which they’ll be playing. Hurt, I am hurt deeply. Why couldn’t you have said Jason Bay? Your deep hatred of the Yankees, obviously, has gotten the better of you. Then again, finally a year and a Yankee team that is worth being afraid of (for you) and worth trying to believe in (for me).

By: Joel Katz

Joel Katz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:52:22 +0000

I also happened to see the film last night here in Modi’in. Fortunately, it was a mixed crowd – but we did have the few teens who cheered at times.

One thing that certainly was different viewing the film here in Israel: reading the Hebrew subtitles of the German and French dialogue (this version had no English subtitles).