Trembling Before G-d (Documentary)

This documentary is an attempt to show us the hidden lives of gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. Built around intimately-told personal stories of a few subjects, mostly in New York community, including some respected Rabbi's, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbids homosexuality. The idea is to examine the soul-shattering torment suffered by gays and lesbians hoping to reconcile their sexuality with their Orthodox beliefs.

David, a Los Angeles resident, confesses that he has gone through a rigorous diet of figs and an aversion therapy program designed to help him change his sexual orientation from gay to straight. He regularly prays and just can't believe that the tradition he loves has excluded him. "Devrah," a lesbian who lives in Israel with her husband, shares some of the pain and loneliness she carries in her marriage. "Leah" and "Malka," a lesbian couple in Miami, follow Orthodox rituals in their life together in love but still are hurt by the ways in which their birth families refuse to accept them. Mark, who was thrown out of seven yeshivas for his homosexual lifestyle, is now HIV-positive. He marches in a Tel Aviv gay parade as a drag queen but in his heart misses the community and the joy of studying in a yeshiva. Israel, the most angry homosexual in the group, breaks down before the camera as he talks about having had electroshock therapy in the past. He also is treated shabbily by his elderly religious father who refuses to meet with him personally after receiving Israel's loving letter. Steven Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, speaks out for more compassionate treatment of those who have been shunned for their sexual orientation. Several therapists give accounts of the bizarre treatments that have been used to try to make gay men become straight. 

The hatred; the intolerance; the indifference to the pain, suffering, and loneliness of those they have hurt; and the inability to express either compassion or forgiveness are scourges upon the Orthodox Jewish community. The filmmaker wisely uses subtitles to fill in some of the explicit religious terminology used in the Orthodox tradition. He makes expert use of silhouettes to protect the identity of many of those interviewed. As you can expect, the documentary has no answers to offer because, perhaps, there really aren’t any. Until archaic dogma entertains the possibility that sexuality is immutable, gays will continue to tremble before God. And just this facet made this documentary interesting for me. I think the torment about religion and sexuality is true for every religion. It all depends on how much do you wanna marry the two. (5.5/10)