In “Sabbath Queen,” director Sandi DuBowski chronicles the journey of Israel-born drag queen and rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, the heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis. Filmed over 21 years, the documentary follows Lau-Lavie, who is a queer father or two, as he struggles to come to terms with the cultural and religious strictures of the Orthodox Judaism he was raised in and his identity as a gay, drag queen.
In the doc, Lau-Lavie publicly promotes notions of gay and interfaith marriage, among other progressive concepts considered heretical by many. His critics include members of his own family, whose rabbinical lineage can be traced back to the 11th century.
The film begins in 2017, when Lau-Levie officiated over a Jewish wedding in New York City between two men who are professed Buddhists. Following this boundary-pushing ceremony, Lau-Lavie admits that he “broke the law” according to Jewish Theological Seminary teachings he has pledged to uphold, and goes on to say that he enrolled with JTS largely to become “a virus inside the system. Not everything that we’ve inherited is worthy of being passed on — we need to look the 21st century in the eye. The change agent that I want to be in the world needs to come from the middle, to approach increasingly divisive voices in Judaism.”
As the founder of Lab/Shul, an everybody-friendly, God-optional, pop-up experimental congregation, Lau-Lavie is on a lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, stand up for peace and ceasefire, and an end to the occupation in Israel/Palestine.
Variety spoke with Lau-Lavie and DuBowski ahead of “Sabbath Queen” closing the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 30.
Amichai, why did you want this doc to be made?
Lau-Lavie: I understood pretty early on that I am in the service of a story that is unfolding, which is basically reimagining the tradition we inherited and being very bold about it from a feminist, moral, humanitarian aspect. So, in the service of that storytelling is my toolbox and Sandi’s interest in recording what I was doing and amplifying, it just felt like an excellent way for both of us to be in service of this bigger idea of this re-imagining of our tradition and broadening the moral horizon.
Sandi, the docu takes a deep dive into so many polarizing issues. How do you plan on getting people from both sides of the fence to see the film?
DuBowski: I waited 13 years to ask Amichai’s brother Rabbi Benny Lau (a celebrated Orthodox rabbi in Israel) to sit down for an interview and he agreed. That interview really became a spine of the movie. These are two brothers who are politically and ideologically not necessarily on the same page, but are in deep love and respect each other. They model, for me and I think for many people in the world, what it means to disagree in this time. That is a model of how to take this to people who aren’t necessarily in the choir.
Lau-Lavie: I think choirs these days need a lot of preaching. We really need support. I’m in Jerusalem at the moment. It’s painful to be a peace-loving, progressive, empathic person in the middle of trauma. So, I might not get to everybody. They might not be able to hear it, but the ones who need to hear it need to hear it. I was at an event last week with 8,000 Israelis who gathered in an arena to absolutely imagine peace between Palestinians and Israelis. It feels like one crack and we were like, “Haha, we are preaching to the choir,” but the choir needs it. That’s true in the States, too. It’s only going to get worse as the presidential election comes nearer. But beyond that, the more conservatives, the more religious traditional, the more suspicious of liberal politics, they might not even show up to this film because there is “Queen” in the title or the word sabbath is too Jewish. So, I don’t know. Honestly, I think that is going to be very tricky marketing and strategic storytelling, which is the challenge for Sandi’s team.
Amichai, in the film your brother says that you are “playing a game with Judaism.” How do you feel about that?
Lau-Lavie: The interview wisely brought out my brother’s arc of honest concern about what I do and what he does. I’m considered a wackadoodle but in Israel and within the modern Orthodox Zionist world, he is considered way out there as a feminist and as somebody who does talk to Muslim leaders and endorses me. So, on the one hand he’s right. What we are doing here is risky. On the other hand, religion is risky business. Unless you are in the business of curating museums and keeping things nostalgically to what they were, which I don’t think is what religion is about, then it’s risky business. We are figuring out what’s going to be adapted in the 21st century, which does not look like a hundred years ago. He gets it. Our disagreement is over time. Do we do this now or do we wait 10 years? Are you going to let public opinion simmer until we are ready to accept gay rabbis in the orthodoxy or are we going to just say it’s happening right now get it or get out. So, I feel he’s a real ally and he is wisely strategic about what he can and can’t endorse publicly.
Sandi, are you hoping to screen the film in Israel?
DuBowski: Yes. I think most importantly in Jerusalem, not just Israel, but in the heart of where this story takes place and the heart of where the challenges are largest. We will see. As Amichai can attest, there is a lot of narratives to push back on.
“Sabbath Queen,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is seeking distribution.
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