Quentin Tarantino, who lives in Tel Aviv with his Israeli wife, singer/model Daniela Pick, and their two children, was harassed in New York on Saturday by a notorious anti-Israel activist performance artist known as Crackhead Barney, who called the Pulp Fiction director a “Zionist piece of s***,” according to the New York Post and social media reports, including video posted to the petulant provocateur’s own account.
Tarantino, who was dining solo at Che Li restaurant on St. Marks Place, kept his cool like Jules, the quietly menacing hitman of the director’s Oscar-winning 1994 hit, but he stayed quiet and did not respond with Jules’s famous line, “And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
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Barney, clad in a bikini top that came askew and a plaid miniskirt, urged him, “Tarantino, say n*****!” an epithet he often uses in his scripts. He walked past her calmly as she called out, “Free Palestine!” and got into a waiting car.
“Going to Israel?” the nattering nudnick is heard asking at one point.
Barney similarly harassed Alex Baldwin several months ago.
Tarantino's connection with the Jewish state
Tarantino visited IDF troops on a military base a week after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage. The visit was intended to raise the soldiers’ morale and he posed for selfies with enthusiastic fans of his films.
The director has been living with his wife, the daughter of the late Israeli music icon Svika Pick, for several years and said in a 2020 interview that he had already gotten used to Hamas missile attacks: “I’m not scared at all. Like everyone else here, I don’t really notice it.” He has also spoken about trying to learn Hebrew through watching videos with his toddler son.
The director and his wife were recently seen dining out in Tel Aviv with Keshet 12 anchor Yonit Levi and her husband, Ido Rosenblum.
Tarantino has said he is currently working on the screenplay for what he claims will be his final film, and the one thing Barney likely got right is that he will be heading back to Israel soon.