'Trembling' Treads Gay-Orthodox Boundaries

c. 2001 Religion News Service

NEW YORK -- Sandi DuBowski believes he has not just directed a film.

With a passion unusual even by the standards of the independent film world, DuBowski hopes his recently released documentary, "Trembling Before G-d," will help a growing social movement--or at least prompt a much-needed discussion of a topic long shunned in the Jewish Orthodox and Hasidic communities.

The topic is homosexuality and the religious and cultural barriers that gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews face in integrating their sexuality with their religious traditions to create an affirming spirituality.

"Trembling" was a hit at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival this past summer, has been praised by publications ranging from The New York Times to Jewish Week, and continues a successful New York run that began in October and broke opening-day records at New York's Film Forum cinema. The film will have premieres through February in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco.

But it is not merely promoting the film--something all independent filmmakers have to do--that has engaged DuBowski, 31, a Brooklyn-bred Harvard graduate.

Multifaith panels with Roman Catholics and evangelical Christians have accompanied some screenings; with the director present, the film has been shown at New York Jewish community centers, Orthodox synagogues and in private home screenings within the New York Hasidic community. In 2002, DuBowski and Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi and one of those interviewed in the film, plan to take "Trembling" on tour to conservative Christian seminaries in the American South.

"Unforeseen promise" is how the young filmmaker describes some of the spontaneous reactions and connections made from the film -- just as he admits that the reviews, screenings and interviews of the last several months have amounted to something of a "wild sprawl."

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