Trembling Before G-d begins with the scene of several ultra-Orthodox Jews wearing sack-cloth, a traditional symbol of mourning, over their black suits. They line a sidewalk shivering. It appears to be cold. They are protesting a hearing for a gay rights bill. The men are cursing homosexuals, denouncing them as “evil and immoral people.” They say the AIDS epidemic is a plague sent by God to punish homosexuals. Some hold hand-lettered signs that read: “Homosexuality is a revolt against the creator.”
If Trembling Before G-d sets out to make any point, it is that the statement on the signs is false. This award-winning feature documentary by the director Sandi Dubowski chronicles the struggles and triumphs of gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews.
Over the course of five years of filming, in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, London, Jerusalem, Miami, and San Francisco, Dubowski interviewed a diverse cross-section of the gay Orthodox world: men and women, some who are closeted and married and some who are flamboyantly out, and modern Orthodox as well as Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jews. (The film’s title is an allusion to a Hebrew term for ultra-Orthodox Jews, haredim or “tremblers,” which refers to their “trembling” reverence for God.)
Most of the stories told in the film are short–the sketches of a life taking at most 10 minutes to tell. Since so much of the lives the film’s subjects have built could be destroyed by coming out, many of them chose to use false names, alter their voices, and have their interviews cast in shadow.
The core of the Jewish preoccupation with homosexuality lies in a pair of Biblical verses in the Book of Leviticus, one of which (Leviticus 20:13) reads, “And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” These passages and another less harsh passage dealing with lesbian sex from the Shulchan Aruch (one of the most authoritative compilations of Jewish law) are the basis for current Orthodox Jewish (as well as Christian) stigma against homosexuality.
Dubowski puts the contemporary Jewish legal interpretations of these injunctions into perspective by seeking comments from leading Orthodox rabbis, including the only openly gay one, Rabbi Steven Greenberg. None of the rabbis who offer commentary condemn homosexuality in a reactionary manner. Most, like Rabbi Meir Fund, state that there is no Jewish principle that the sinner, so to speak, be condemned along with the sin. All this serves, however, mainly as an interesting counterpoint to the film’s real focus: the perspectives of those who are living with this issue.
Six individuals’ stories support the weight of the documentary, their interviews parceled into narrative chunks interspersed throughout the film. Each illustrates how gay Orthodox Jews are painfully torn between their identities as homosexuals and as religious Jews.
Israel is a 58-year-old gay man who left his home in Borough Park, Brooklyn and rejected religious observance because of his family’s cruel treatment. “Malka” and “Leah,” their faces obscured and identities hidden in the film, are very religiously observant lesbians who have been together since high school. “Malka” is coping with her family’s rejection after she came out to them. Mark is an HIV-positive gay man who is returning to his beloved yeshiva world after having been expelled for his homosexual activity. Michelle is a Hasidic lesbian who left an unhappy marriage and her family when she came out.
One of the film’s most touching stories is that of David, who spent 10 years attempting to fight his homosexuality. Convinced he could “become straight,” David sought the advice of a rabbi who told him to eat figs and recite certain psalms and a therapist who recommended he wear a rubber band around his wrist and flick it every time he saw a man he found attractive. After years of fruitless efforts, he came to the realization that his sexual orientation was not so malleable. “I got to the point,” he says, “where I realized I wasn’t going to change.”
The film follows David as he journeys to San Francisco to confront Rabbi Joseph Langer, the first person to whom he came out and his initial source for advice and support. At the time Rabbi Langer had told David to try to cure himself of his sexual urges with the help of psalms and therapy. Twenty years later, the rabbi is unable to give a satisfactory answer to David’s question: Does Orthodox Judaism deny him his human need for sexual expression and relegate him to a celibate life, as David says, “alone with no partner, with no loving relationship?”
David ends up making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to place a note in the Western Wall. Instead of begging God to change him–like his previous petitions–he asks that God be happy with him as a gay man, and grant him self-acceptance. The camera captures him weeping at the Wall, his white shirt distinct in a sea of black.
Dubowski’s skill lies in weaving together a cohesive narrative–both thematically and visually–from so many distinct pieces. The documentary is much more gripping and powerful than the sum of its individual parts. The account of David’s attempts to change his sexual orientation are intercut with excerpts from an interview with a Jerusalem psychologist who recommends that gay Orthodox Jews struggle against their own nature, and scenes of a religious ceremony for the purging of sexual sin, complete with shofar blowing, rubbing of ice, and reading of psalms. The documentary’s message is clear. The psychoanalytic methods that David tried 10 years ago are as ineffective and ridiculous as the pseudo-religious magical ceremony.
One of the few problems with the film is that it restricts itself only to gays and lesbians. The perspectives of bisexual, transgendered, and transsexual Jews are absent. From an Orthodox standpoint, there are more halakhic (Jewish legal) hurdles that arise with these members of the community. Bisexual Jews, for example, do have some choice in the gender of their partners and as a result are sometimes seen as de-legitimizing the halakhic arguments of gay and lesbian Jews. Nevertheless, their voices too should be heard.
Minor problems aside, Trembling Before G-d serves as an eloquent rejoinder to the bigotry of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters seen in the opening scenes. With artistry and respect, Dubowski challenges Jewish tradition while pointing the way for a new Orthodoxy that should and must make room for the gay Jews in its midst. Above all else, it is the poignant scenes of devotion and the brutal honesty of the film’s subjects that hammers this argument home. Their stories show that one can be queer and still lead a religious life allied with God. To deny the legitimacy of their faith, to deny them a place at God’s table, is pure cruelty, rooted in fear and ignorance. “I don’t want to be a less-than Jew because I’m gay,” says David, and after seeing Dubowski’s film, one can’t help but agree wholeheartedly.
