TREMBLING BEFORE G-D

“Homosexuality is a Revolt Against God” screams a picketer's sign. Media stereotypes would lead you to expect that show of intolerance at a conservative Christian rally, but in fact it's a protest demonstration by Orthodox Jews, against gays and lesbians within their own religion. TREMBLING BEFORE G-D casts a bold light on members of the Hasidic and Orthodox sects who must either closet their forbidden sexuality – like Devorah, a lesbian in a sham marriage to an Israeli man – or dwell ostracized from their families and temples, like Brooklyn-born Israel, who has not seen some members of his immediate family since 1971. “I've studied too much Talmud to understand that someone cannot be Orthodox and queer at the same time,” he laments, but in an electrifying confessional he comes out to a fellow Jew on the New York streets and shouts “I know I live my faith!” The Holy Books are clear in their prohibitions against men lying with men, women with women; what this courageous documentary depicts is attempts by rabbis like Steve Greenberg and organizations like Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and the “Orthodykes” to live within, practice and yet reconcile with millennia-old dogma that denies their nature. In the age of AIDS it means no less than changing the attitude of the Creator Himself, “Knower of Secrets, Kepper of the Universe” (In English and Hebrew with English subtitles)