1) What's with the narcisistic, petulent in-your-face, pseudo-angry Jewish martyr ?

2) Did you expect understanding, when your attitude is so clearly designed to provoke ?

3) What did you take away from the whole experience?

4) Will your next film have a little less sophomoric testosterone ?

1) A classic combo

2) At last someone who understands me

3) A six-pack from Bagel World, (considered, grownup-sounding answers to
    follow,eventually…)

4) See answers 1) to 3)

Was the finished film (btw you did a superb job) what you initially expected?
- ClaudiofromOttawa

Thank you. Yes and no.

In my experience so far documentaries are always a surprise and always a gamble – since nobody really knows what will work until it's shot and edited. I initially proposed looking a wide range of things on the topics of contemporary Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, from "Jewcy" brand underwear to the hot dog stand at Auschwitz.

Ultimately the most powerful stuff that materialized in the actual shooting, and which hung together in a narrative made the final cut. I could not have anticipated, or perhaps I avoided considering too carefully how I personally would react on camera to some of the more intense moments, which, watching it again, constitute most of the film.

In general I'd have to say that my collaborators and I had to work hard to pull some of the surprising realities of what happened into something that wound up reaffirming the essence of what I initially pitched, which was hopefully to make the audience consider what lies behind people's desire to know another person's ethnic (or whatever) identity.

Having done your documentary are you surprised by what you found? Do you feel less safe or optimistic than previously? Are your feelings of Jewishness strengthened by this experience?
- ThaliafromToronto

Some of this is answered above, but in general, yes it was all surprising to me. Even things I'd read about, that I'd crossed an ocean specifically in order to film – for instance non-Jewish "Jewish" soccer fans in Amsterdam, or anti-Semites in France – were depressingly surprising to meet head on.

I feel no more or less safe than when I started making this film a couple of years ago. Maybe the world has unleashed fresh whiffs of its ugliness, including new waves of anti-Semitism, but it didn't exactly smell like lilies before.

I don't believe I actually divulge in the film whether or not I am Jewish. I think encouraging the audience to think about why they want to know is more interesting than the actual details of my biography. My ultimate feeling is that people truly are pinned down to an identity bestowed on them by others, sometimes their worst enemies, as opposed being free themselves to choose.

Why the title Kike Like Me? Was it just to get attention or was the idea in some way to defang the word as has happened with other racial epithets?
- Anonymous

Clearly the title is intentionally provocative. But here's why I've stuck with it.

My overarching journey in the film is a reference to the conceit used in the precursor to Black Like Me, Gentleman's Agreement in which Gregory Peck plays a Gentile journalist who starts telling people he's Jewish for a story on anti-Semitism. Then why not just "Jew Like Me"? For one thing, it's an ironic wink at some of the more recent attempts by recent pop-Jewish movements to "rebrand" Jews in the mode of hip-hop culture: Heeb Magazine, Jewcy Couture… I haven't actually heard of any attempts to reappropriate the word kike per se, but I seriously question whether even say, nigger has been successfully reclaimed.

It may appear harmless enough when young black kids (or their white imitators) bandy it about ahistorically, but I worry about what happens when one day a black kid gets blindsided -- when he's called nigger by a real redneck – it sure isn't going to feel like a compliment. And if recycling "nigger" is a dubious move by cool black people, then "kike" sure ain't gonna fly for Jews who for some reason are never a hip minority.

Indeed on one hand, while you'll never hear the white wannabe kids calling each other "my kike" and downing a fifth of Manischewitz on the street corner to be cool, on the other hand no matter how far into the mainstream Jews might get, you're never allowed to forget that it's the "Jewish neo-cons," or whatever.

"A spade by any other name is just as black," as a Jamaican poet I studied at school put it. So yes, kike is an ugly and anachronistic word, unfortunately as I discovered the attitudes it represents are still very much current. If only using a prettier word would make them disappear!

Where can I purchase a copy of "Kike Like Me" ?
- CatherinefromLondon

Please send an e-mail to info@cave7productions.com

I am a first generation Canadian (Jewish) and strictly by chance and perhaps by fate, I turned on the TV. to your program and watched it all. What prompted you to make this documentary and what reactions have you had from Jews and Gentiles? My husband and I really enjoyed your ironic sense of humor and share many many of your viewpoints. It has been a wonder to us how the death camps can be turned into a "Disneyland" of the dispora and supported by the Gentiles and Jews who should have realized that this horror should never have been turned into an investment. However, you have shown in your film how diverse human beings are in their actions towards and their opinions of their fellow man.
- ReneefromToronto

As I say in the film I was prompted to make it by being often asked if I'm Jewish and wondering what lay behind that question. But ultimately, I see it as a film about identity that happens to look at Jews. They make a great case study because by and large they're white, (obviously no one's going to ask a black person if he's black – and it's the motivation behind that line of questioning that really interests me) but for some reason Jews are never quite allowed to meld invisibly into the mainstream.

As to the reaction, aside from people who were just too offended by the title to even show up to prior screenings, the film has had a hearteningly positive response at festivals so far, general film festivals and Jewish ones – great press, full houses, enthusiastic Q&A sessions with intelligent questions that seem to lead to all round satisfying dialogue. I know not everyone loves it, which is fine. When it was near completion I showed it to some friends, one couple in particular: secular, middle-aged, Jewish intellectuals. They had totally opposing views. She was extremely disturbed and found my on-camera cynicism/irony hard at times to distinguish from anti-Semitism. He completely disagreed, and while they shouted at each other — and once I took a moment to get over being called a possible anti-Semite by a friend — I thought: yeah, this thing is working.

Hi Jamie,
I am a gentile who is somewhat critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. This is tempered very much by the fact that the Muslim peoples have no tradition of human rights and that Israel is surrounded by countries run by nefarious, hostile governments. To my mind the whole situation has been hijacked by both the right and the left, creating a polarized situation where you have to be totally pro-Israel or totally pro-Palestinian.

Why can't one be Jewish and be critical of Israel in the same way as gentile Canadians and Americans can be critical of their own governments? Why can't one be gentile and criticize Israel the same we might criticize any other foreign government? Haven't we learned anything about simplistic arguments? Do you see any way out of this? From the smouldering anger you display in your documentary, I don't think you do, so I think I've answered my own question. Let me know if this is true.

By the way you have a right to your anger. The time-honored tradition of Blaming Everything On The Jews is idiotic, and your documentary shows there are still enough high-profile idiots out there.

I try to find a reason for the jaw-dropping level of anti-semitism over the ages and just can't fathom it. A visibly successful minority that engenders envy? Yes. A few very high-profile individuals who, as in all groups, act in a despicable way? Probably. The fact that people need someone to blame when things go wrong. Definitely. But it still doesn't seem enough. Any thoughts? Or are you just by and large disgusted by the human race like I am?
- PeterfromOttawa

You raise many interesting points, let me try to respond to a few.

I really don't get into the middle eastern conflict in the film because so many other works in every imaginable media already have, and what really could I meaningfully add.

Nevertheless, I do believe you or anyone else of any religion has the right to be critical of your or any other country's politics. I simply believe that in so doing, people need to be consistent in their criticism, i.e. apply the same standards to all groups/countries as to those they criticize, and try honestly to consider the particularities of each situation in as much historical context as possible. When people don't do this, it seems to me, is when "political" criticism becomes open to scrutiny.

Yes I too think it's tragic how black and white things are painted in the Middle East, and the extent to which that part of the world has long been the pawn/scapegoat of larger political struggles.

See I told you I couldn't add anything new. And to your last point, yes, sadly, it appears that human beings always need some "other" to piss on.

Man, now I'm like, totally bummed.

How do you feel now about the things you said in the Auschwitz section of the film, particularly that it should be blown up? Don't you realize that many consider it a sacred place?
- Anonymous

After the title, I know this is the most controversial part of the film. I think what I say on camera at that point of the film is the culmination of, and in reaction to, all the offensive tourist kitsch I've seen in Poland, in what ought indeed to be treated instead as a sacred burial ground.

Incidentally I am far from the first to be turned off by what's become of concentration camps. The great writer and survivor Primo Levi, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz said he felt wholly unmoved by a return visit to its museum incarnation. Wonder if they had the hot dog stand yet…

So what to do with the site itself beyond its current desecration comes down I suppose to a debate over aesthetics or museum theory or something. On one hand I wince slightly hearing myself speaking so purely emotionally on camera, on the other I still think: yeah, why not blow it up? Would a vast hole in the ground be any less fitting a memorial? Incidentally at that moment in the film I say "I think this whole place should be blown up and the people who did it along with it." The latter part is more complex (chronologically, at least) thankfully though, you didn't ask about that.

In the Q&A following the film's festival premiere at Hot Docs, someone asked, "What about maintaining Auschwitz as a hedge against holocaust deniers?" Well, sadly, holocaust deniers exist even with Auschwitz there.

Here's another response to that question I received from a Jewish Film Festival director:

"I have never understood why we continue to create this incredible tourist industry for them to show us where they killed all my predecessors and we actually PAY THEM to do it. Blowing up Auschwitz and all the other camps would be my preference as well but try telling that to Jews that think guilt will keep us all Jewish."

I'm sure this statement too will only start more arguments, but that's fine with me, let it be debated, let it all be discussed. That hopefully is what the film helps accomplish.

After all, after my "blow up" remark, I went back to an editing suite in Toronto, I didn't muck around some ditch in Poland trying to figure out how dynamite works. (Which, come to think of it, probably isn't that complicated).