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The
project of gay liberation underway in America over the last few
decades has achieved a good deal of success in the arena of personal
sexual freedom. But while mainstream America has become more accepting
of homosexuality, socially conservative religious communities
have powerfully resisted such change in attitude. In Orthodox
and Hasidic Jewish communities, in Catholic, Evangelical Christian,
Mormon, and Moslem communities there has been no formal acceptance
of homosexuality, and no expansion of the notion of marriage and
family to include gay partnership or parenting
The priority of religious and communal values in Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox
and Hasidic Jewish communities, has in large measure, checked
the personalization of sexual desire and gratification that has
marked the sexual revolution. Sex is mediated instead by biblical
command, familial expectation and marital obligation rather than
personal preference. Homosexuals in these communities often marry
under implicit or explicit familial pressure. Many men and women—gays
and their straight partners—live in quiet desperation, suffering
silently behind closed doors. Others never marry, living closeted
lives on the margins, suffering various degrees of exclusion,
shame and loneliness. Some have been actively ostracized and others
have fled the Orthodox religious world altogether in order to
build a personal life in liberal Jewish or secular communities
Remarkably, however, even these extremely conservative religious
communities are undergoing an attitudinal sea change. Religious
and communal norms are still largely in place, but, for the first
time, Orthodox Jewish communities—especially the more socially
integrated Modern Orthodox but even in some of the highly segregated
Ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic communities—places where conversation
about homosexuality used to be impossible are now buzzing with
such conversation. Among the causes of this turnaround from taboo
to Sabbath table talk has been a documentary film that has taken
Orthodox communities by storm
On October 24th, 2001, Trembling Before G-d began its commercial
release in New York City. The film is structured around interviews
with six men and women who describe their experiences as gay and
lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, telling of their struggles
in the embattled space of religious faith and gay self-acceptance.
Some were willing to go on camera; others agreed to only a partial
exposure. The faces of two women were darkened and one subject
spoke from behind a screen with her voice were altered. Many who
could not show themselves in any light became shadows in a set
of silhouette pantomimes of Sabbath table rituals and wedding
rituals. The technical difficulties presented by the need to preserve
some of its subjects’ anonymity, in fact, come to symbolize the
dilemmas of secrecy, and the challenge of making invisible experiences
visible. Trembling also interviewed a number of Orthodox rabbis—including
myself—in order to provide a backdrop for the testimonies. I bridged
the categories sharing both rabbinic opinion and personal narrative
The film introduces viewers to gay and lesbian Jews rejected by
their families and religious leaders. The pain they share is often
raw. Despite their anger and pain, however, these people manage—
with irony, humor and resilience—to carry on a debate with the
millennial Jewish tradition on the matter of sexuality. The rabbinic
figures, meanwhile, are not demonized or made to look ridiculous.
While the distance between the subjects and the rabbis sometimes
loomed , the rabbis also mirrored the subjects of the film, at
times seeming caught in earnest on the horns of the dilemma to
both defend the tradition as they understand it and care for people
whom they can see are suffering
The filmmaker, Sandi Simcha Dubowski, shot the film over five
years in New York City, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London, Miami,
and San Francisco, and captured through his travels an array of
Orthodoxies and gaynesses. The opening frame of the film is the
verse from Leviticus that marks homosexual relations as an abomination
deserving of death. The closing frame is a benediction from the
Talmudic tractate Berachot or Blessings: “Blessed are You Lord,
knower of secrets.” In this way the film moves in an arc from
curse to blessing, and from what appears as an incontrovertible
fact to an abiding mystery. The viewers are invited to move from
law to narrative, to struggle and finally to the secrets of the
soul
In the first five months of its release, Trembling was seen by
seventy thousand people. It has spawned dozens of high profile
news stories and radio interviews that have carried the stories
of gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews, the stories of painful rejection
and courageous commitment to faith, across America, Europe and
Israel. An integral part of the film’s project is to open up discussion.
I, along with filmmaker participated in over four hundred post-screening
discussions around the United States and internationally, in theaters,
synagogues and other venues. We never imagined how willing Orthodox
Jews would be to entertain a dialogue around the film on the issues
of faith, tradition, love and sexuality. Astoundingly, fifteen
Orthodox rabbis have arranged to screen the film in their synagogues
to their membership. In Kehilat Jeshrun, one of New York City’s
most influential Orthodox synagogues, over five hundred people
showed up to watch the film and participate in a discussion afterwards
Of course, there have been negative reactions from Orthodox communities,
as well. The film has been attacked by the Agudas Israel of America,
the right wing Orthodox synagogue organization, as a biased representation
of the issue. In Baltimore, Orthodox Jews from a group called
JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) along
with fundamentalist Christians picketed the film. However, even
this minor backlash ended up serving the larger aim of opening
up conversation, since the controversy attracted record numbers
of Orthodox Jews to the theater
What we were surprised to discover in the course of all these
discussions of the film is that Orthodox Jews’ negotiation of
a social change as large as gay liberation is a good deal more
complex than we originally imagined. In a few Modern Orthodox
communities we discovered a grassroots acceptance of gay people
despite the law and in some an active policy shaped by the rabbi
of welcoming gay individuals and couples into the synagogue. People
in those synagogues that were more open to secular knowledge generally,
more open to women’s equality, and more integrated into the broader
American culture tended to be willing to see the film and engage
in a conversation afterwards
But it wasn’t just denomination that determined how groups reacted
to the film. Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, for instance, were extremely
willing to participate in the cinema dialogues following the film.
In their view, each of the many commandments and observances of
Jewish life is reckoned according to a separate account. They
see no hypocrisy in doing less than everything, and often encourage
newcomers to the tradition to take on one new mitzvah, one commandment,
at a time. In practice, this leads to an inclusive ethos that
offers to any Jew who walks into a Chabad synagogue a sense of
acceptance and welcome
There is also a difference between what religious authorities
say in public and what they say in the course of private conversations.
Many gay Orthodox people have found that when they go to rabbis
for private counseling they receive much more sympathetic responses
than when the issue is addressed publicly. In face-to-face encounters,
many rabbis—often those who are least modern—find ways to help
people navigate the struggle between their desire to remain religious
and observant and their sexual orientation. Given this distinction,
we discovered that when the film was presented to Ultra-Orthodox
Jews in a small group, the semi-privacy of the setting gave people
a sense that it was safe to engage personally, without the need
to make public policy pronouncements. The more public Orthodox
screenings were more formal, more controlled by rabbinic authorities,
less personal, and thus often less open in tone
Finally, we realized that those who believed that gay people do
not choose their sexual orientation, or who came to understand
through the film that this is the subjective experience of many
gay people, were more inclined to be empathetic with the challenge
gay and lesbian Jews face. Moreover, it seemed that the idea that
gayness is essential rather than elective helped some of the Orthodox
Jews who screened the film express a greater openness to the possibility
of halachic change, or change in Jewish legal practice
What do all these reactions to Trembling Before G-d suggest about
the future of homosexuality in Orthodox Jewish communities, and
perhaps among other conservative religious groups? Does their
surprising willingness to engage with the issue suggest that Orthodox
Jewish communities will increasingly come to accept gay and other
unconventional families over the next ten or fifteen years? Ultimately,
I believe that this depends to a large extent on what we mean
by “acceptance.” What is emerging within some Orthodox communities
is a growing willingness to separate halachic, or legal, norm
(which will not change immediately and many will say will never
change) from social policy and practice. That is, there is an
increasing acceptance of the presence of gay Jews in the community
and an open expression of the desire to be inclusive, despite
the legal breach
What remains to be seen is whether Orthodox communities can maintain
this rather delicate balance. Among the projects that have developed
in response to the film is the idea of the “Welcoming Synagogue.”
The project envisions two dozen Orthodox synagogues in North America
by the year 2004 that agree to the following three principles
a1.a
For Rabbis, No humiliation: Rabbis will agree not to humiliate
or intimidate gay people from the pulpita
a2.a For Gay Congregants, No public advocacy: Gay members will acknowledge
the limits of an unfinished Halachic process and not presume the
Orthodox synagogue will adopt the political agenda of the gay
and lesbian communitya
a3.a For Communities, No lying: Gay members will be able to tell
the truth about their relationships and their families a
While this project is ambitious and very exciting, one wonders
how “welcoming synagogues” will be portrayed in the Orthodox media.
A backlash may well develop against the growing tolerance as it
moves past the private province of understanding rabbis into the
realm of public policy statement. Will the welcoming of gay and
lesbian Orthodox Jews into some Orthodox synagogues be framed
as a public criticism of the rest? If such openness is grasped
as a disparagement of Orthodoxy or Jewish law, if it is identified
with an ideology of liberation rather than with human compassion,
then these glimmers of communal openness could close up. Still,
there is good reason to think that the accomplishments of the
last few years as essentially irreversible and unstoppable. Once
taboo becomes Sabbath table talk and the conversation gets going—it
can never be silenced again
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Simcha
Leib Productions
