Drag queen rabbi provokes with human message

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. 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. 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. '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