Trembling Before G-d

Trembling Before G-d is an 2001 American documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, an American who wanted to compare Orthodox Jewish attitudes to homosexuality with his own upbringing as a gay Conservative Jew.

The film won seven awards, but some Orthodox Jews criticized it. The film received ten award nominations, winning seven, including Best Documentary awards at the 2001 Berlin and Chicago film festivals. However, some criticized the film as showing a one-sided view of Orthodox Judaism's response to homosexuality. These include South African chief rabbi Warren Goldstein as well as Agudah spokesperson Rabbi Avi Shafran.

The film is mostly in English, but also has some subtitled Yiddish and Hebrew. The film follows the lives of several gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews and includes interviews with rabbis and psychotherapists about Orthodox attitudes towards homosexuality. During the film's six-year production, DuBowski met hundreds of homosexual Jews, but only a handful agreed to be filmed due to fear of being ostracized from their communities. Many people who agreed to be interviewed are shown only in silhouette or with their faces pixelized. The majority of the participants are American Jews, with one British and one Israeli Jew also featured. The film was successful at the box office, grossing over $788,896 on eight screens by its close date.

Read more about Trembling Before G-d:  Background, Synopsis, Production, Legacy, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words trembling before and/or trembling:

    In peacetime, they had all been normal decent, cowards, frightened of their wives, trembling before their bosses, terrified at the passing of the years, but war had made them gallant. They had been greedy men. Now they were self-sacrificing. They had been selfish. Now they were generous. War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best, the highest morality he is capable of.
    Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)

    Nothing could be so beautiful, so smart, so well drilled as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums, cannons formed a harmony such as was never heard in hell.... Candide, trembling like a philosopher, hid himself as best he could during this heroic butchery.
    Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)