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Director Sandi DuBowski used 1,800 hours of footage to make ‘Sabbath Queen'
Director Sandi DuBowski used 1,800 hours of footage to make ‘Sabbath Queen'

Boston Globe

time5 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Boston Globe

Director Sandi DuBowski used 1,800 hours of footage to make ‘Sabbath Queen'

Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Through family interviews and archival footage, 'Sabbath Queen' navigates nuanced conversations surrounding religion, the patriarchy, sexuality, interfaith marriage, heritage, and the inevitability of change. The documentary also touches on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and includes footage of Lau-Lavie at protests after the July 2014 bombing of a playground in Gaza. The film ends with Lau-Lavie's response to the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Advertisement "Sabbath Queen" director Sandi DuBowski spent over two decades collecting footage for his documentary. Provided This Sunday, July 13, DuBowski will join the Coolidge Corner Theatre for a screening of 'Sabbath Queen' at 2 p.m., followed by a post-film discussion — his first Q&A at the theater since the screening of 'Trembling Before G-d' in 2002. Advertisement Ahead of the screening, DuBowski spoke with the Globe about the film's creation, audiences' responses, and how his team distilled 1,800 hours of footage into an hour and 45-minute 'record of a life,' as DuBowski described it. Q. When did you know that it was going to be 21 years, and what was the process like? A. It unfolded very intuitively and organically. I don't think that I knew the map. This was a film where it's not the year in the life of a school or a contest. It's really just submitting to the unknown and allowing serendipity and synchronicity, and just not knowing. [The story] kept revealing itself as the process unfolded. Even in the editing room, we were making choices about the shape of the film … and the editing took six years. It was a mountain of material. So, that was definitely a Herculean task. Q. How did you know when you were done with filming? A. In some ways, act one and act two of the film were the kaleidoscope of Amichai's identity. He has so many worlds that he lives in, as such a multi-faceted character. Then you get to act three, and it's like, what is going to be the dramatic arc? We really felt that it was this question of interfaith marriage, which was forbidden by conservative Judaism, where he was ordained — that became a distillation of so many of the issues [featured in] the film. Once he decided to do interfaith marriage as a conservative rabbi, he was kicked out and forced to resign. That became a dramatic end to the film, and we decided to wrap the story. Advertisement Then, October 7 happened, so we had to really reckon with how, or if, we would pull October 7 into the film, and in what way. Q. I found it really impactful how his brother, [Rabbi Binyamin Lau , said Amichai taught him how to understand a person's differences by watching Amichai forge his own path through life and rabbinical school. A. When his brother says, 'The closet is death,' I mean, that is just astonishing. I wept when I heard him say that during the interview, because that is growth. [Amichai] is a queer person who's really affected the world, and his brother had the capacity and the deep soul to embrace it. I just think [Lau-Lavie's] family is really quite amazing, because, look, we're living in such toxic, polarized times. So when we are reaching across differences and we're doing the difficult dialogue work, that's where we need to be. Q. What has the response to the doc been like? A. I've been hearing how people are deeply, deeply affected by the movie. Some people are coming multiple times to see it. And they're coming back, and they're bringing their kids and their parents and their neighbors and relatives. … I have all these trans, nonbinary, and queer teenagers who are coming to see the film, who feel so deeply affirmed by it. The kind of Judaism that Amichai is offering is so different than what so many people have grown up with, or experience, and really don't know how to access. I mean, to have a God-optional Judaism — something that really upends patriarchy — that's really like, so queer and so about equality. [Judaism] that really can be critical around Israel. Advertisement Q. Given the current conflict between Israel and Palestine, what do you hope audiences take away from 'Sabbath Queen'? A. Amichai is from a thousand years of rabbis. His uncle was the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He is deeply rooted, and he is deeply critical. Amichai is on the street protesting against the war and for cease-fire, for peace, and against the occupation. He's on the street in Israel, as we speak, at protests. He's actually doing a tour [with the documentary] right now. There's a screening with Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem, and he did a screening in Jaffa with Standing Together, which is a movement of Israelis and Palestinians for social justice against the war. So, we're taking this [film] to Israel. Palestinian peace activists are coming to see the film in New York and London and in Jerusalem and other places. I think it's giving Amichai and other people who are fierce critics a platform. SABBATH QUEEN With director Sandi DuBowski. July 13 at 2 p.m. Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. Tickets start at $14. Interview was edited and condensed.

Drag queen rabbi provokes with human message – DW – 06/16/2025
Drag queen rabbi provokes with human message – DW – 06/16/2025

DW

time16-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • DW

Drag queen rabbi provokes with human message – DW – 06/16/2025

The documentary "Sabbath Queen" follows Amichai Lau-Lavie, the first openly queer rabbi in a long Orthodox rabbinic lineage, in his identity quest and calls for peace. "Being gay and demanding my place at the Jewish table gave me the permission to talk back to Judaism over homophobia and racism, over Gaza and over misogyny," says Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie. The Israel-born social activist and New York City community leader has been hailed as a "maverick spiritual leader" by The Times of Israel and "one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world" by the Jewish Week. He is portrayed in the documentary "Sabbath Queen." Lau-Lavie and director Sandi DuBowski were in Berlin to attend film screenings at the Doxumentale film festival, which runs until June 22. Amichai Lau-Lavie and Sandi DuBowski in Berlin for the Doxumentale (formerly Dokumentale) film festival Image: Elizabeth Grenier/DW Finding his own voice as a spiritual leader amid a rabbinic dynasty Lau-Lavie was still a young man when he decided to leave Israel for New York in the late 1990s. His move was prompted by the backlash over a newspaper profile of him. The nephew of Israel's then-chief rabbi, the young man said he was exploring a path outside the Orthodox community before the piece outed him — without his consent. In New York's gay subculture, Lau-Lavie found his chosen family, particularly an activist group known as the Radical Faeries that fused radical queerness and spirituality. But beyond this freethinking community, Lau-Lavie also strived to honor his family's religious legacy. He is the heir to a 38-generation Orthodox rabbinic lineage going back to the 11th century. One of his grandfather's last wishes before being deported to a Nazi concentration camp was that this rabbinic dynasty be upheld. The grandfather, along with many other members of the Lau-Lavie family, didn't survive the Holocaust. From drag queen to Conservative rabbi Lau-Lavie's quest to find his life path is the subject of "Sabbath Queen," a documentary created over 21 years — the period director Sandi DuBowski spent with his subject. "In the beginning, I was just very entranced by Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, the drag character," DuBowski told DW, referring to Lau-Lavie's female alter-ego, the wise widow of six Hasidic rabbis. In her performances, Gross humorously and insightfully challenges patriarchy. But beyond the colorful drag character, the film shows how Lau-Lavie developed various formats as a spiritual leader. These include Lab/Shul, an experimental community for sacred Jewish gatherings open to everyone where "God is optional," and the ritual theater company, Storahtelling. Later, in order to take part in a larger conversation with Jewish thinkers beyond the progressive community, Lau-Lavie went a step further: In 2016, he got ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), a Conservative Judaism institution. As a young man, Amichai Lau-Lavie found his voice through queer and spiritual artistic performances Image: ROCO Films Testing boundaries with interfaith weddings That didn't stop Rabbi Lau-Lavie from exploring the boundaries of traditional Judaism and pathways for religious renewal. He officially broke with the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, by officiating the wedding of two Buddhist gay monks — only one of them was also Jewish. While Conservative Judaism has been approving same-sex marriage ceremonies since 2012, the movement continues to prohibit its rabbis from performing interfaith weddings. It's a topic of ongoing debate within the Jewish community, as some view mixed marriage as a threat to the future of Judaism. But Lau-Lavie instead envisions a faith that embraces "plurality and pluralism." He calls it "a healthy ecosystem of different ways of being Jewish." His publications and scholarly research also drive the conversation, including exploring the Hebrew Bible through a queer perspective in a project called "Below the Bible Belt." "I'm trying to retrieve from the Bible the lineages and the narratives and the strands of justice and love and morality and humanity and dignity and fluidity that have always been there," he explains, aiming to offer a counternarrative to the "Jews first" policies of supremacist Jews. Among his numerous projects, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie offers a queer re-reading of the Hebrew Bible Image: ROCO Films 'Horror must stop' The film ends after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Already in the early months of war, Lau-Lavie was critical of the Israeli government's reaction. "I hold the pain of my Israeli family," he said. "And our trauma and need for safety do not justify Israel starving and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the continued occupation. This horror must stop," he says in "Sabbath Queen." On a political level, Lau-Lavie tells DW that he aims to "meet in the messy middle, not in the polarities." But when he meets people without any empathy for Gazan children, he feels there's no longer room for debate. "It's not unlikely that we're going towards a cultural war, like a civil war in Israel. I can't see how it's avoidable." A board member of different human rights groups and networks of Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates, Lau-Lavie regularly returns to Israel. He will soon be holding three weeks of back-to-back screenings of "Sabbath Queen" in different community centers, congregations and Israeli-Palestinian peace groups. The discussions held there are not only helpful to others, but also help ground him during an "increasingly painful situation." Referring to his peace activism and calls for compassion toward all Palestinians and all Israelis, he wearily points out: "What I'm saying is so old news. It's like so cliche: 'Both sides' 'Team Human.' But the erosion of empathy is just unbelievable." Still, no matter how repetitive his message may feel, he has noticed that there is a strong interest in the discussion sparked by the documentary, especially in the current context where "the supremacist Jewish has hijacked the conversation," he said. "I'm bringing the side of Jewish that so many people want," he adds. Amichai Lau-Lavie finds solace in the idea that he represents "a particular Jewish lineage that has always prioritized morality, and love of each other and universal values. And I'm not a minority." Edited by: Stuart Braun

Drag sabbath
Drag sabbath

Winnipeg Free Press

time16-05-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Winnipeg Free Press

Drag sabbath

'Mom, are all rabbis drag queens?' Sandi DuBowski overheard a 10-year-old boy in California ask that question after screening his latest film, a sprawling documentary about Amichai Lau-Lavie, a suis-generis, queer religious leader — the nephew of the former chief rabbi of Israel — who moonlights as the bombastic blond Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross. As a filmmaker, DuBowski is drawn to the stories of risk takers who defy containment. Enter Lau-Lavie, whom DuBowski first learned about while working on Trembling Before G-d, his trailblazing 2001 portrait of gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews straddling multiple worlds. Supplied Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie moonlights as the bombastic blond Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross. 'I went to Jerusalem to look for people to be in the film and everyone kept saying, 'You have to meet Amichai.' So I met him and asked him to be in the movie and he refused because he was too much of a diva: he wanted his own movie. He said, 'I don't do collage,'' recalls DuBowski, who grew up in Brooklyn. But DuBowski and Lau-Lavie developed a trusting relationship in the months that followed, and by 2003 the documentarian had hit the record button. What ensued over the next two decades was Sabbath Queen, a deeply rewarding longitudinal portrait of one man's constant religious and spiritual evolution set against the backdrop of an increasingly hostile world. 'People used to tell me it was like what Richard Linklater did in Boyhood, and I would say, yes, but it's more like Rabbihood,' says DuBowski, in Winnipeg for tonight's screening at Public Domain (633 Portage Ave.), where viewers will be treated to a Q&A and an accompanying Shabbat snack spread. The level of access and scope of his connection to his central character was unprecedented for DuBowski, 55, whose own life experiences consistently found a mirror in Lau-Lavie, who, under tremendous professional risk, conducted an interfaith wedding ceremony for the filmmaker and his husband, Eric. 'I think for me, this is really a mid-life film. It's about holding these big questions, testing and compromising around structures and systems. Like, where do you push? There's an inside-outside strategy Amichai employs, so that's part of it. I think just watching the unfolding of a life.' Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. That reverse origami reveals a subject, as well as a filmmaker, constantly reorienting himself within the context of both a flexible modern world and a static, text-based landscape, assessing the strictures of religion to renegotiate the boundaries of inherited tradition. As the film progresses, DuBowski and Lau-Lavie are revealed as deeply introspective, considerate and intellectually open characters, willing to engage soulfully with questions asked both within and without global Jewish communities: Who is Jewish? Who is godly? Who are we to even ask such questions? Supplied Director Sandi DuBowski 'I was at a retreat with Amichai and we were told to lie down and imagine our funeral, our eulogies, our purpose in life, and I got up that night crying. 'Amichai, I wish I could become a rabbi.' At that point, the conservative Jewish movement that I grew up in didn't accept openly gay or lesbian rabbis,' DuBowski recalls. 'And Amichai comforted me and said that artists are the new rabbis, and that's when I became an artist. I have no rabbis in my family, but I really do feel like I live by that idea — artists as the new rabbis — and that's how I'm trying to do my own version of spiritual work.' Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

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