• The author asks searching questions to the makers of the movie Oppenheimer to assuage his hurt feelings.

Imagine you are a Jewish actor cast in a movie made by someone non-Jewish; this non-Jewish director shows during a physically intimate scene the Jewish holy call to prayer ‘Shema Israel’ written in Hebrew. Further imagine that this it is a perverse test of your proficiency in Hebrew that you are able to read these sacred letters on the bare chest of a woman while you are in a physical relationship with her. She demands that you call forth the Lord, that is Yahweh (Jews write it as YHWH without vowels because the very name of God is unutterable being holy), while you are womanising and going against the very tenets of your religion, that is, Judaism. 

If such a film is shown in the west, would it not be antisemitic? Would for instance, Hasidic (orthodox) Jews in the US or any Jew for that matter, approve of this kind of portrayal of their religion in any movie? Jews consider Hebrew a sacred language and not merely similar to any other language. Hebrew is the language of God, the Jewish Prophets and God's chosen - Jews or Israelites. 

The examples of Judaism here is only to make a point. It is not meant as an antisemitic rant as will be evident in this article. It is to defend our Dharma in the context of Nolan's film that one invokes Judaism. 

When the ‘Shema Israel’ is recited during all holy occasions of the Jews, it is traditional and right for Jews to cover their heads as a sign of humility to God.

Say, there are no historical records of such an incident in a biopic (cinematic portrayal of a biography) of any Jew anywhere and yet this non-Jewish director insists on showing a clinically depressed lady in a state of undress demanding that you read Hebrew off her bare body then there is something perverse in the director’s mind. 

One can only conclude that the reasons why such a director chooses to insert this part into a movie may be two: the director is insensitive to the Jewish religion, or the director intentionally wants to insult Judaism.

The other more important worry is that this director thinks the Jews will not react and their religion can be portrayed anyway the director pleases. Also, there may be a slight chance that the director is making fun of clinically depressed women while at the same time hitting out at Judaism. Why not kill two birds with the same stone?

This is exactly what Christopher Nolan (British born filmmaker) has done in Oppenheimer. (“Based on the autobiography, American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film is about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is regarded as the father of the atomic bomb.” Indian Express)

He mocks my religion as he mocks clinically depressed women and his sidekick, Cillian Murphy who plays the scientist Oppenheimer, obeys Nolan’s depraved directorial instructions and shows the real Oppenheimer in a poor light. That is something for Jews to reflect about. Was Oppenheimer actually depraved?

Bollywood Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has now taken a dig at the citizens wondering how many would have actually read the Hindu text.  I wonder if Ramji has read the Holy Gita - would love to know his learnings. 

Senior journalist and founder of Save Culture Save India Foundation was offended like the author. His tweets and TV interviews can be seen Here

We who follow the Laws Eternal, otherwise known more popularly though incorrectly as Hindus, hold the following as true:

Each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is sacred and corresponds to a Matrika or one of the manifestations of the Holy Mother of this and other universes.

We also hold that the Bhagavad Gita, is the one text which is scared to all Hindus everywhere. It is this text’s words which accompany us from this life to the next life. When the Gita is recited in Sanskrit, there is no Hindu in the world who does not feel that she is in touch with the Supreme Godhead.

Therefore, to portray both Sanskrit and the Bhagavad Gita as has been done in the movie Oppenheimer is to take our Dharma as a plaything of the playboys of the western world. Think how it would look if someone tested the Latin of a scholar by asking a medievalist to read St. Augustine’s ‘mea culpa’ from his Confessions held by a woman during the sexual act?

As a communist recently told this author that the Gita is not a Dharmic text, it is perhaps apt that the director of Oppenheimer shows this sacrilege within a communist setting.

Could you have made a movie where the Torah, or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, are read in a state of undress by those who do not believe in the existence of YHWH? 

Kindly note, I have not used the term Old Testament since it is insulting to Jews that their holy texts are considered old while the Christian holy texts are considered new. Also notice I spelt for the second time the unutterable name of God without vowels because my religion teaches me to respect Judaism.

Christopher Nolan, his cast of actors and actresses and all those associated with the film have simply trampled underfoot our Dharma. The white man’s hatred of all things not white is well brought out in this movie. It will not be amiss to remember that the much-adored Albert Einstein did not have a very good opinion about Indians as has been recently discovered in his letters. And predictably Einstein appears once too often in this hotchpotch of a movie. 

Is one then to assume that Christopher Nolan and his retinue involved with the making of this movie are not only anti-Hindu but anti-semitic? It is high time that the Jewish people should take a hard look at Nolan and his crew members who have made every possible effort to undermine the real Dr. Oppenheimer. At the end of the day, Oppenheimer is more anti-Jewish than anything else. 

The intent of this article is to express my hurt feelings only and surely not to offend my Jewish brothers. Readers are free to decide if they wish to watch the movie or not.

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 Author Subhasis Chattopadhyay has a Ph.D. in Patristics and the Problem of Evil in American Literature from the University of Calcutta. His reviews from 2010 to 2021 in Prabuddha Bharata have been showcased by Ivy League Presses. He has qualifications in Christian Theology and Hindu Studies and currently teaches English Literature in the PG and UG Department of a College affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He also has qualifications in Behavioural Sciences.

Also read

1. How the HOLY GITA taught me to ENJOY Life

2. Commentary on the Holy Gita Chapter wise in PDF