Event

Trembling Before G-d

United States/France/Israel, 2001
84 minutes, English/Yiddish/Hebrew (English Subtitles)
Directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski

Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the Berlin Film Festival, Trembling Before G-d shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemmahow to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. We meet a range of complex individualssome hidden, some outfrom the worlds first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts, many who have been tragically rejected. Their pain is raw, yet with irony, humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a thousands-year old tradition.

This film is one of three screening in the series "Faith and Sexuality, On Film and In Person." For the Bible Tells Me So screens July 22 and A Jihad for Love screens September 18. You can purchase individual tickets to this series for $8.00 each, or an all series pass $15.00. JCC East Bay members will be admitted to these films for free.