Gay Hasidim refuse to choose.
Sitting in Makor's dark screening room, listening to director Sandi Simcha DuBowski introduce his 2001 documentary about gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, I realized for the first time that coming out in such a strict community means exile.
Biblical quotes begin the film, establishing a loose context for the testimonials that follow. The film's production value is limited but easily overlooked?we are meant to concentrate on the lives of the subjects, seven men and women (including one lesbian couple), shot over the course of five years. They offer up their pre-gay, religious backgrounds in their own words, and we are struck by their fervor to maintain both their sexual identity and faith.
Orthodox David knew he was gay at age 11, and confessed as much to his parents. After a brief discussion with his rabbi, he assured them that he could overcome this "shortcoming" with therapy. When prayer failed, he attempted various cures suggested by rabbis around the country?from snapping his wrist with a rubber band when he had homosexual thoughts to eating figs upside down. After more than a decade, he's "still" gay.
Ultra-Orthodox "Devorah" lives in Israel with her husband of 20 years, along with her many children and grandchildren. A lesbian who seeks to be the good Jew that God wants her to be, she wants to keep up appearances in the community. Her husband refused to terminate their sexual relationship, leaving her to reluctantly fulfill her marital obligations behind closed doors.
Despite their inner conflicts, David and Devorah remain practicing Orthodox Jews. While David is removed from his childhood congregation, Devorah hides her true identity so as not to be rejected. The truth made public would cause her great shame and separate her from her family.
Israel, the son of an Hasidic rabbi who realized his homosexuality in the mid-70s, remains connected to his Boro Park past only through his "Big Knish Tours." He hasn't attended services since last speaking with his father more than 20 years ago. Dubowski records a call between Israel and his estranged father?in perfect Yiddish and Hebrew?and it becomes clear that Israel has, in his father's mind, slighted his faith and is no longer welcome in the family or community.
DuBowski, who directed the 1996 anti-abortionist documentary Missionaries Form Militias Unholy Alliance, has noted that when he began this project, he did so with little enthusiasm and even less understanding. He questioned why anyone who is gay and religious would care what an intolerant community thinks about them. Why don't they live openly, away from the restrictions of such antiquated taboos? With time, DuBowski became inspired by the subjects' compulsion to love God and live their lives openly, a struggle best captured during impromptu confessions made to the camera.
While some Orthodox communities are beginning to recognize gay congregates, homosexuality is, for the most part, ignored. Solutions are not easy to find. One rabbi explains how he deals with this emerging population:
"So the Jew who is gay by choice, I would pound my fist on the table and say it is a yetzer ha'rah [evil inclination], work like mad to overcome it, just like I work like mad, hopefully, to overcome some of my yetzer ha'rahs, you work like mad to overcome yours. A Jew who is, as we might say, wall-to-wall gay, so realistically he is not going to be necessarily receptive to that message. So I will hold his hand, figuratively, metaphorically, and do the best I can to give him strength to serve Hashem [God] where he is capable of so doing."
DuBowski's film has become a unifying force for people of faiths not known for communicating with one another. In 2001, the director held the first ever Shabbat at Sundance, followed by a Mormon-Jewish interfaith discussion (this was, after all, Utah). At several screenings in New York and Los Angeles, Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians have gathered together to protest outside synagogues and theaters showing the film. DuBowski always intended for Trembling to effect discussion and change. It seems to be working.