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Trembling Before G-d is a 2001 American documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha…
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Trembling Before G-d is a 2001 American documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, an American who wanted to compare Orthodox Jewish attitudes to homosexuality with his own upbringing as a gay Conservative Jew.
Trembling Before G-d is a 2001 American documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, an American who wanted to compare Orthodox Jewish attitudes to homosexuality with his own upbringing as a gay Conservative Jew.
The film received ten award nominations, winning seven, including Best Documentary awards at the 2001 Berlin and Chicago film festivals. However, some criticized the film as showing a one-sided view of Orthodox Judaism's response to homosexuality. These include South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein as well as Agudah spokesperson Avi Shafran.
The film is mostly in English, but also has some subtitled Yiddish and Hebrew. The film follows the lives of several gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews and includes interviews with rabbis and psychotherapists about Orthodox attitudes towards homosexuality. During the film's six-year production, DuBowski met hundreds of homosexual Jews, but only a handful agreed to be filmed due to fear of being ostracized from their communities. Many people who agreed to be interviewed are shown only in silhouette or with their faces pixelized. Most participants are American Jews, with one British and one Israeli Jew also featured. The film was successful at the box office, grossing over $788,896 on eight screens by its close date.
While a variety of views regarding homosexuality exist within the Orthodox Jewish community, Orthodox Judaism generally prohibits homosexual conduct. While there is disagreement about which acts come under core prohibitions, all of Orthodox Judaism puts certain core homosexual acts, including male-male anal sex, in the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor, "die rather than transgress" – the small category of Biblically prohibited acts (including apostasy, murder, idolatry, adultery, and incest) which an Orthodox Jew is obligated under Jewish laws on self-sacrifice to die rather than commit.
Familiarity with sociological and biological studies, as well as personal contact with Jewish homosexuals, has brought some Orthodox leaders to a more sympathetic viewpoint, which views homosexuals as mentally ill rather than rebellious and advocates treatment rather than ostracism or jail. In the 1974 yearbook of the Encyclopedia Judaica, Rabbi Norman Lamm, a leader in Modern Orthodox Judaism, urged sympathy and treatment: "Judaism allows for no compromise in its abhorrence of sodomy, but encourages both compassion and efforts at rehabilitation." Lamm compared homosexuals to those who attempt suicide (also a sin in Jewish law), arguing that in both cases it would be irresponsible to shun or jail the sinner, but equally wrong for society to give "open or even tacit approval".
When Orthodox rabbi Steven Greenberg publicly announced that he was homosexual, Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a leading rabbi at the Modern Orthodox Yeshiva University where Greenberg was ordained as rabbi, stated "It is very sad that an individual who attended our yeshiva sunk to the depths of what we consider a depraved society," giving his opinion that Rabbi Greenberg's announcement is "the exact same as if he said, 'I'm an Orthodox Rabbi and I eat ham sandwiches on Yom Kippur.' What you are is a Reform Rabbi."
Trembling Before G-d interviews and follows several gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews, many only seen in silhouette, and also interviews several rabbis and psychologists regarding their views on homosexuality in Orthodox Judaism. The film repeatedly returns to several characters:
David is an observant Orthodox Jewish doctor from Los Angeles who has spent a decade trying to reconcile his homosexuality with Judaism. He has tried numerous forms of "treatment", from eating figs and praying to wearing a rubber band on his wrist to flick whenever he thinks of men, but to no avail. During the course of the film, David decides to visit the Chabad rabbi to whom he first came out.
Israel David Fishman is a 58-year-old New Yorker who decided he could not be gay and Orthodox, and turned his back on his religion, though not before his family forced him into electroshock therapy to try to cure him. Now a tour guide in the Haredi neighborhoods of New York, the film follows him as he gives a tour, psychoanalyzes himself and decides, on the 25th anniversary of being with his life partner, to call his 98-year-old father, a rabbi, whom he has not seen in over twenty years.
Michelle is another New Yorker, in her forties, who believed she was the only Hasidic lesbian in the world and as a consequence allowed herself to be pressured into marriage. However, she got divorced and was subsequently ostracized by her family and community when they discovered she was homosexual. The film shows her visiting her old neighborhood and an Orthodox fair.
Rabbi Steven Greenberg, one of the founding members of the Jerusalem Open House, a gay rights organization in Israel which provides support to gay Orthodox Jews and their families, who is sometimes called "the world’s first openly gay Orthodox rabbi", discusses parents' reactions to their children coming out, as well as traditional interpretations of the prohibitions on homosexual acts in the Torah.
Shlomo Ashkenazy is a gay psychotherapist who has run a confidential support group for Orthodox gay men for nearly 20 years. He is interviewed about the effects of Orthodox attitudes to homosexuality and the reactions of rabbis to gay Jews.
Mark is the English son of a Haredi rabbi. Coming out at 15, he was expelled from seven yeshivas for homosexual activity before becoming a drag queen, and is now dying of AIDS-related illness. He visits several yeshivas and other religious sites throughout the film. He remains upbeat, at one point saying, "Being a Jew is such a nice present to receive."
Source: Trembling Before G-d (CC BY-SA)
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