FADE IN
Ext. Seaside Cafe-Day
SUPER: “Tel Aviv, Israel 2024”
Customers pack outdoor tables beneath white canopies. It’s another sweltering scorcher on the Mediterranean.
A BEAD OF SWEAT drips down a man’s neck.
The man is director QUENTIN TARANTINO, 61. He sits across from his knockout wife, DANIELLA PICK, 40, and their two-year-old son LEO.
QUENTIN empties half a bottle of ketchup on his French fries. He thrusts a dozen fries into his mouth then offers a morsel to LEO. DANIELLA pecks at her salad wiping ketchup from her son’s chin.
Suddenly, an AIR RAID SIREN wails in the distance.
The CAFE PATRONS rise en masse, calmly. QUENTIN grabs his son while DANIELLA gathers their belongings. The couple joins the crowd and walks toward a concrete building across the street.
A BUILDING SIGN reads: “Shelter.”
The throng disappears into the safety of a bombproof bunker.
FADE OUT
Quentin Tarantino moved to Israel with his wife Daniella Pick in early-2020. On HBO’s Real Time, Tarantino compared the city to Los Angeles. “Both have magnificent restaurants, cool bars, cool clubs. The weather is almost the same. You’re sweating balls here, your sweating balls there. It’s like LA but really tiny.”
When Covid hit, the Tarantinos waited out the crisis in Tel Aviv. He told the Jerusalem Post, “I would rather not have been out of my own country against my will for a year. However, if I’m going to be in another country, the country that handled COVID the best is probably the best country to be in.” (Israel was the first country to implement Covid vaccinations.)
Tarantino intended to split his time between Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. After pandemic restrictions were lifted, he stayed in Israel. He has no desire to convert to Judaism. He considers himself a lapsed Catholic and an avowed atheist. “I’m not going to convert to another God I don’t believe in,” he told Bill Maher. Still, Tarantino has embraced Jewish traditions like Sabbath dinners, reciting Hebrew prayers and posting mezuzahs on doorways. “I love the idea of a Shabbat meal and getting together with your family,” he told The Jerusalem Post. He watches children’s television shows with his son to learn Hebrew.
Tarantino’s Israeli journey began in 2009 when he premiered Inglourious Basterds in Jerusalem. After the screening, he went to a club where he met his future wife Daniella Pick. Pick, a popular model and singer, is the daughter of legendary Israeli pop singer Svika Pick. Tarantino and Pick danced for hours and felt an instant connection. But the timing was bad. Pick was in a relationship and Tarantino was consumed with his career.
Six years later, Tarantino encountered a friend of Pick’s on a cruise ship. The friend told him Pick had split up with her boyfriend. Tarantino called Pick and invited her to meet him in Paris. The two began dating and ultimately married in a private home in Los Angeles in 2018. The wedding was a Reform Jewish ceremony featuring a huppah (wedding canopy) and the traditional breaking of a wine glass to commemorate the destruction of the ancient temple in Jerusalem.
The couple had their first child Leo in 2020. Fans assumed the boy was named after Leonardo DiCaprio but he was actually named after Pick’s maternal grandfather Ari Shem-Or. (“Ari” translates to lion in Hebrew). They had their second child, a daughter they named Adriana, in 2022.
Tarantino has become a fixture in the Israeli film community. He hosts movie nights for friends in his home screening room featuring films like Straw Dogs and Papillon. He taught a master class for filmmakers in Jerusalem. He told Bill Maher he’s considering shooting his 10th and final film in Jerusalem. “There’s no place you can put the camera that you’re not capturing something fantastic.” In 2022, Tarantino received an honorary degree from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in recognition of his ties to Israel and his cinematic achievements.
Tarantino was in Israel on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas attacks. Though he didn’t live near the initial incursions, shrapnel from intercepted missiles fell on his Ramat Aviv neighborhood. On Real Time he told Bill Maher about living in the presence of missile attacks. “There’s a city-wide siren letting you know the Hamas missiles are on their way. I take my 15-month old son and go down to a bomb shelter, close the door, then you hear the sound of missiles being blown out of the sky.”
Tarantino is apolitical. After October 7th, he condemned the Hamas attacks as anti-Semitic. He visited an Israeli army base days after the attacks to boost morale among IDF troops. He never considered leaving the country during or after the attacks. “He isn’t afraid,” Tarantino’s wife told The Jerusalem Post. “Most of the time, he wouldn’t even go down to the shelter if I didn’t tell him. I have two small children in my arms, so he helps me. He once said something funny to me: ‘Well, whatever. Like if something happens, I’ll die as a Zionist.’”
Tarantino’s words yielded criticism from anti-Israel protesters. There’s an online video where Tarantino dines at a New York restaurant and is confronted by a woman yelling, “Why are you a Zionist piece of shit?” She demands that Tarantino say, “Free Palestine.” Tarantino ignores her. It’s notable that someone as outspoken as Tarantino has not publicly addressed accusations of Israel’s potential genocide against Palestinians. Fairly or not, his silence has largely been viewed as support for Israeli military action.
Long before Tarantino moved to Israel, he helped Israelis transform their national sense of self. The most famous scene in Inglourious Basterds (2009) is when Adolf Hitler is eviscerated in a barrage of machine-gun fire by two American Jewish soldiers. The scene was criticized for revising history. But for Israelis struggling with Holocaust victimization syndrome, the scene provides emotional catharsis. This is a historical (though fictive) depiction where Jews are no longer victims. They’re instead heroes in a narrative that had always weighed them down.
Tarantino’s decision to live in Israel does wonders for national pride. At a time when the world is turning its back on Israel, Tarantino has embraced the country. TikTok videos show him traversing Tel Aviv streets, eating ice cream or dining at local cafes. He’s taken on full “abba mode” prioritizing fatherhood over filmmaking.
His wife told The Jerusalem Post, “He’s an amazing father. He’s warm, family-oriented, huggable, funny and playful. He’s also an amazing and supportive husband. There was a time when he really thought maybe it wouldn’t happen for him, this whole family thing. I’m very happy for him.”
Clearly Tarantino is happy as well. He told The Jerusalem Standard, Israel has been wonderful. “I play with my kids, walk the neighborhood, ride my bike. Just going out with good friends and having fun, drinking and smoking cigars, or having dinner. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t be here.”