|
By PAUL BRENNER
New Yorker Video has
released an excellent two-disc edition of Sandi
Simcha Dubowski's passionate documentary about of
the painful struggles of gay and lesbian Hasidic
and Orthodox Jews for their religion to recognize
their sexuality, despite biblical prohibitions in
Leviticus that strictly prohibits homosexuality.
The personal nature of this documentary requires
the reviewer to come clean about his own sexual
and religious preferences before continuing
onward: This reviewer's MO is as follows: I am a
non-practicing heterosexual (the non-practicing
part involving no decision whatsoever on my part)
and a man of somewhat limited spiritual
credentials -- my father was Jewish but never
attended a synagogue and my mother a Catholic but
never went to church and when their children were
born they had many arguments about what religion
not to bring their kids up in. My religious
education came from watching "Insight" at 5 a.m.
on Saturday mornings and seeing Herschel Bernardi
on Broadway in "Fiddler On the Roof."
But the five people Dubowski follows around the
world (Brooklyn, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London,
Miami, San Francisco) and accepts the testimonies
that form the crux of the film are true, loving,
impassioned believers of Judaism and their
dilemmas are soul shattering (as one of the gay
Orthodox Jews tells Dubowski, "I don't want to be
less than a Jew because I'm gay"). But the
effectiveness of the film is stunted by relying
too much upon the case studies and not exploring
other options (for example, the strict
fundamentalist reading of the Torah almost
precludes any allowance for the acceptance of gays
and lesbians, but there are more liberal forms of
Judaism, like Reconstructionist and Reform, that
will freely admit gays and lesbians). Dubowski
also tugs a bit too easily on the heartstrings,
particularly when he has 58-year-old Israel state
that "All I want is my Daddy" and the Orthodox
David literally wailing at the Wailing Wall.
Dubowski's subjects are already fascinating enough
without his hedging his bets (scissors should have
been employed more liberally during the
conversations). Despite all that the film is still
very effective and has been a success in inspiring
other homosexual fundamentalists Jews to attempt
to come to terms with their sexuality instead of
torturing themselves in quiet anguish.
Even better than the film is the second disc of
special features, which runs about three hours in
length. First is a very compelling featurette
called "Trembling On the Road" about the impact
the film has made on divergent communities. There
is also a slew of interviews, not only with
Dubowski and his editor Susan Korda, and several
interviews with Orthodox rabbis (explaining their
positions better here than in the film).
Also included is an interview with Rabbi Steve
Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi
(who is also seen in the film). There are other
featurettes on the Orthodox Community Education
Project (organized by Dubowski to train
facilitators) and the Atonement Ceremony For
Sexual Sins. There is an excerpt from a Phil
Donahue Show, a clip of another of Dubowski's
subjects (Mark, a gay Hasidic Jew from London)
delivering a joyful song, information on
international gay and lesbian resources, a deleted
scene, and weblinks. Included is a short film by
Dubowski called "Tomboychick" -- a tribute to his
grandmother. The film is presented with optional
Hebrew, Yiddish, and Spanish subtitles.
Here is one special edition where the extras are
so good that the film itself should be the extra.
Perhaps New Yorker Video sensed that because the
copy I have had the disc numbers reversed. |
