The Closeted World of Gay Orthodox Jews: A Review of "Tremblg Before G-d"

Contents:

• THE GAY ORTHODOX UNRGROUND
• MY SECRET LIFE AS A GAY ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEW
• A YOUNG HASIDIC MAN LEADS A GAY DOUBLE LIFE BLACK HAT
• WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GAY TEEN IN A JEWISH ULTRA-ORTHODOX COMMUNY
• WHY DID NETFLIX CUT ‘I’M GAY’ FROM DOCUMENTARY ABOUT EX-HASIDS?
• MORN ORTHODOX JEWS ARE MOSTLY OBSERVANT, WEALTHY AND GAY-FRIENDLY

THE GAY ORTHODOX UNRGROUND

There is no official membership, and only a handful of people are willg to put their nam on support-group Ashkazy, a gay-rights activist and Orthodox Jew who liv New York Cy, says he has spoken wh over 200 gay Orthodox Jews over the past few years. Filmmaker Sandi DuBowski, who produced and directed Tremblg Before G-d, terviewed hundreds of gay um (observant) Jews over the past few years for his movie.

Open and Secret Support Groups In the New York area, home to the largt ncentratn of gay Orthodox Jews, at least four support groups have spng up to meet their needs.

’" The three founrs of the Gay and Lbian Yhiva Day School Alumni Associatn chose that name specifilly to attract a gay group wh an Orthodox background. The first Wt Coast support group was found Los Angel by "Jab, " a 54-year-old Orthodox gay Jew who had been married and livg a New York suburb until ten years ago, when he nfsed to his wife that he was gay.

MY SECRET LIFE AS A GAY ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEW

He started attendg an Orthodox synagogue, but was treated as a send-class member (he did not receive aliyot [he was not lled up to the Torah], for example) bee he was gay. The issu for Orthodox lbians are different than for Orthodox gay men, part bee the Torah do not specifilly prohib lbian sex.

For a long time, he says, "people uldn’t nceive that was possible to be gay and um, so they were leavg [Orthodoxy] drov. "The Liv They LiveMany gay Orthodox Jews attempt to ignore their sexual impuls, perhaps even marryg and raisg fai.

And then there are those who lead fully gay liv, ignorg the halakhic [Jewish legal] ban on gay sex. Richard Isay, a gay New York-based psychoanalyst, timat that 15 to 20 percent of gay men marry women–bee they want to ny or "cure" their gayns, or want children, or to please their parents. He adds that the Orthodox muny, the number of gay men marryg pursu of tradnal liv is much higher than the secular world.

A YOUNG HASIDIC MAN LEADS A GAY DOUBLE LIFE BLACK HAT

I was still at school when I first tried tellg a rabbi I was gay but all he said rponse was: "It's jt a phase, happens to a lot of girls. I thk he already knew I was gay but he'd nvced himself that was jt a latent sire rather than an tegral part of my inty. But if beg Orthodox Jewish and gay was not patible then I don't thk that God would have ma me this way.

So, Shmuel (Adam Silver) leads a double life -- prayg at the synagogue and managg a dry cleang bs by day, and then traversg gay bars by night -- at least while his wife and children are out of town.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GAY TEEN IN A JEWISH ULTRA-ORTHODOX COMMUNY

Wrer, -producer, and gay Jewish man Phillip Guttmann explaed some of the challeng ultra-Orthodox Jews face. "Every Jew is obligated to fulfill the entire range of mzvot between person and person relatn to persons who are homosexual or have feelgs of same sex attractn.

WHY DID NETFLIX CUT ‘I’M GAY’ FROM DOCUMENTARY ABOUT EX-HASIDS?

Embarrassg, harassg or meang someone wh a homosexual orientatn or same-sex attractn is a vlatn of Torah prohibns that embody the ept valu of Judaism. In rponse to the Supreme Court’s lg favor of marriage equaly, the Unn of Orthodox Congregatns released a statement, sayg, “We reerate the historil posn of the Jewish fah, enunciated unequivolly our Bible, Talmud and Cos, which forbids homosexual relatnships and nmns the stutnalizatn of such relatnships as marriag. Openly gay Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Steven Greenberg, has officiated at same-sex mment ceremoni and has been sharply cricized by his lleagu for dog so.

There are, to date, only a few openly gay Orthodox rabbis all of whom revealed their sexual orientatn only after ordatn. " Here I found eply relig people tryg sperately to rencile their sexualy wh their fah visg wh openly gay people who fled the muny years ago and never looked back.

I've met beard Hasidic rabbis who joed this unr a girl's name bee they are transgenr, and teens thst out of their hom for beg gay who don't know how to live the secular world.

MORN ORTHODOX JEWS ARE MOSTLY OBSERVANT, WEALTHY AND GAY-FRIENDLY

He wrote rponse to lls at the time to ncel the sodomy law (which was ultimately ncelled only 1988, thanks to Shulam Aloni) I, as an Orthodox Rabbi, Support Legalizg Same-sex Marriage We Sharpened the Assailant's Knife In Their Own Words Livneh was neher ultra-Orthodox nor Orthodox, but rather a Jewish natnalist, yet his ma argument was that homosexualy is foreign to Judaism, nstut a foreign fluence by generate Wtern culture and should be the op-ed he claimed that for hundreds of years Jews the Diaspora succeed prervg their muni om those “sexual perversns, ” or as he phrased : “It is totally absurd to have suffered for many generatns the Diaspora, while strictly prervg, nurturg and refg the heterosexual prciple, only to return to the Land of Israel and renew the ‘gentil’ abomatn’ here.

”The history of homophobia fact prov that Livneh’s claim (which many Jews have upheld and still uphold to this day) is, if anythg, a “foreign fluence. ” Throughout the morn perd natnalist homophob have claimed that homosexualy is nothg but a generative foreign cultural fluence on members of their people.

For their part, the French nsired an English phenomenon: As late as 1991, French Prime Mister dh Crson said that homosexualy belongs to “the Anglo-Saxon tradn” and is foreign to the French Lat culture. Israeli Print Ezer Weizmann, as is well-remembered, also said that there was homosexualy the Brish army but not the Palmach pre-state ia. Th the Nazis charged sexologist and gay rights activist Magn Hirschfeld that as a Jew he “brought the oriental vice to Germany.