05 November 2008

Trembling Before G-d (2001)


Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are either gay or lesbian, this unprecedented feature documentary shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality and religious fundamentalism. It portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma on how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals -- some hidden, some out -- from the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts. Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with irony, humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a thousand-year old tradition.

TREMBLING BEFORE G-D is an international project with global implications that strikes at the meaning of religious identity and tradition in a modern world. For the first time, this issue has become a live, public debate in Orthodox circles, and the film is both witness and catalyst to this historic moment. What emerges is a loving and fearless testament to faith and survival and the universal struggle to belong. Certainly this film is a MUST-SEE!

(In ENGLISH, YIDDISH & HEBREW with ENGLISH & SPANISH subtitles)

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