Andrew Ramer has just published his collection of Queer Midrash, Queering the Text, in which he writes our stories back into the history — and the sacred texts — of the Jewish people.
Midrash is an ancient custom of creating stories the fill in the blank spaces, or explain the seeming contradictions in the Torah. The best example is the story almost all Jews know — that of Abraham smashing the statues of idols in his father's shop. Many Jews believe this story is in the Torah. It isn't. It was a midrach created by a rabbi centuries after the Torah was redacted into the form we have it today.
Midrash is kind of a sacred literary jazz riff on the story, giving it new meaning and relevance to later generations.
In the story Andrew reads in the video, he takes a text from Genesis and uses it as a window into the Biblical landscape to create a story of the first gay male lovers — and how their love was recognized as sacred.
Apologies for the poor quality of the image, but you can hear him read clearly, and if this kind of story is meaningful to you, you can be sure it will be a heart-opening experience. By rewriting the story, we can set ourselves free from the tyranny of the story. By recognizing it is a story created by others, we don't have to live out the old scripts — we can write new ones and truly live happily, in the moment, ever after.
While over at JoeMyGod there have been 70+ comments on the banning of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from Pride parades in Canada, in Be'er Sheva, Israel's third largest city, in the Negev desert, held its first official Pride event, officiated by the city's mayor. Oh yes, the religious right went bat shit crazy. But the mayor stood his ground and even put city funds into the event. Because Israel is a secular democracy. The New Israel Fun reports that: there are plans to create a LGBT teen hang-out in Be'er Sheva—an
open house for young people in search of support and community. Local activists will work toward making the festival an annual
event and bringing it 'out' with a high-profile parade.
Shai Gortler, a gay activist wants to see the LGBT
community work with and on behalf of other marginalized communities in
Israel such as Arabs, people with disabilities and manual laborers. "No
one is free if not everyone is free," he says.
Today is the final day of The Artist is Present at MOMA. Yesterday I went with my friend Frank and arrived just moments before, as it turned out, our friend Jensen was to take his seat before the Artist. It felt like a moment of grace to be able to bear witness to him as he was received and totally seen, completely taken in, by Marina Abramovic in the performance piece that seemed to me to be more an encounter with holiness.
The charged square space filled with the emptiness of presence gave it a sense of the Holy of Holies. In her white dress, Abramovic seemed like the Shekhina herself. Or Quan Yin, Kannon, Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion, bearing all the pain and heart of all those who entered her space.
And all this before I went upstairs to discover her other pieces. From the Memento Mori of the model below the skeleton, to passing between the Scylla and Charybdis of the two models in the doorway, to the crucifixion without nails that is Luminosity, it was an experience of the museum as a cathedral, a meditation space to participate in, rather than simply consume.
The press and discussions that I had heard all dwelled on the titillation of the event. Or perhaps I just did not bother to read deeper into the articles I saw. Because there have been few shows more powerful. And I am only sorry today is the last day, and that I didn't take advantage of the time earlier to enter that charged space myself and sit before the artist.
My friend Jensen, in the photo above, entered the space at 2:40 on Sunday afternoon. He had joined to line to do this at 1:30am the night before. He was in that seat for less than 15 minutes, but watching him go through all the emotions that arose it was clear each second there was experienced with the complete naked intimacy.
And all I can think of are the words of the Kadosh prayer:
Holy. Holy. Holy. All of creation is filled with the glory and presence of the Divine. (And in this case, the Divine Feminine)
The
LGBT Film Festival in New York has a program of shorts under the theme Singing,
Dancing, Waiting. Who loves short shorts? I certainly do. Especially if there’s
a film about cute go-go boys.
Okay,
so this fun little film is about the heavy subjects of body image, body fascism
and fantasy
in the gay male community. Except that it’s sweet, funny and filled
with self knowledge and compassion. Not to mention hot go go dancing boys: See the trailer below.
Another
film on the program is one I wrote about last year: EZ Heeb, from Ali Coterill,
star and director of Fagette, which I loved when it screened at NewFest a
couple of years back. It's pure queer Jewish fun. Buddhist I don't know. But queer Jewish? Yup.
There
aren’t a lot of places you can see films like this with an appreciative
audience, and a chance to meet the filmmakers, who are often there. Ali Coterill will be that's for sure.
The Singing, Dancing, Waiting program plays on Sunday June 5th
at 2:30pm. You can buy your tickets at the LGBT Community Center on 13th
Street, at the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, or online at NewFest.org.
NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival has hooked up with
the Faigele Film Festival, New York’s Jewish LGBTQ Film Festival: presenting
Gay Days and The So-Called Movie.
A Movie About A Gay Hip Hop Cowboy Klezmer DJ Video Artist.
Say Nu?
The NewFest program describes Josh Dolgin, the subject of
the documentary "The So-Called Movie" as the love child of Woody Allen and Lil Wayne. Uh huh. Okay.
Well, What I can say is that Dolgin is one very interesting character whose
passion for music of all kinds is infectious, and whose beats just make me
happy. Makes me want to get up and dance.
Along with Gay Days, a documentary about the lgbt movement
in Israel, this NewFest trek uptown represents a move to recognize the fact
that the lgbt community is made up of many communities around the city. So on
June 8th, NewFest will be at the Jewish Community Center on the
Upper West Side.
The night before, on June 7th,
NewFest will be at Harlem Stages showing Children of God, a high-tension romance
that takes places in the midst of a homophobic crackdown in the Bahamas. Complete
with a right-wing preacher on the down-low, this film captures the
claustrophobia of life in a society where shame, secrecy and the threat of
violence are always present.
Imagine a movie about two men who live in an extremely
homophobic, yet highly male-identified community. These two men are deeply
involved in their community — a group that gives them an identity, a place in
the world, a way to understand everything. Yet these men find themselves so
powerfully attracted to each other that they are willing to risk their
position, their friends, family, their deepest beliefs and even their lives to
be together. Have you seen this movie before? Yes and no.
Two new movies explore this rapidly growing new cinema
motif. Because while this paradigm could well describe the plot of Brokeback Mountain,
it also describes one movie that takes place in an enclave of ultra-orthodox
Jews in Jerusalem and a second that follows a relationship that unfolds between
to members of a band of neo-Nazis in Denmark.
Yes, where the ultra-orthodox Jews and neo-Nazis find common
ground is in hatred of queer people. So oddly enough in the last year we saw
two movies released that tell stories as parallel as the photographs of couples
in these such outwardly different groups.
The Brotherhood, which won the top prize at last year’s Rome
Film Festival, follows the story of Lars and Jimmy, two young, angry and
rootless young men in Denmark whose passionate hatred of immigrants (and gay
men — the film begins with a disturbingly real gay bashing scene) turns to
passion for each other. Eyes Wide Open, which can be seen in New York City at
the Jewish Film Festival on January 19th at the Manhattan JCC, tells
the story of Aaron and Ezri, two ultra-orthodox Jewish men caught in the
claustrophobic world of the Haredi in Israel. The parallels between the stories
are unsettling, but at this point should not be a surprise.
These parallels are simply be the sign that there is a
pattern to this kind of story that, like the films of an earlier generation,
will be revealed as a kind of forbidden romance motif. And of course, the
father of this new generation of gay forbidden romance films is Ang Lee’s
Brokeback Mountain, which also takes place in the male-dominated community of
cowboys.
Like Brokeback, in both of these films one man is the
experienced initiator — the Tempter template if you will. And like Brokeback,
they follow a very similar trajectory. In some ways, all these films are like
Harlequin Romances in their strict adherence to a form. Of course, you know a
Harlequin Romance, with all its twists and turns will end happily. But
following the Brokeback pattern (and considering the communities these stories
take place in) I won’t be spoiling anything to tell you not to expect a happy
ending in either of these films.
This is not to say the movies aren’t good. Both of them are
quite good in fact. And this isn’t to suggest you won’t be surprised or left
with questions at the end of both these movies — because the endings are not
quite as clear as all that. They are both well worth seeing, and you’ll have
the chance to see Eyes Wide Open (which was an Official Selection at Cannes) in
New York this month.
Another reason to see Eyes Wide Open is Ran Danker, the
Israeli pop star who plays Ezri, a homeless youth who has been expelled from
his yeshiva for obvious reasons. He has a hit song in Israel called “I am Fire”
and I believe it. Yes, he plays the tempter Ezri in Eyes Wide Open, a young man
expelled from his yeshiva and cut off by his former fellow student and lover.
Ezri, sleeping on the streets, is taken in by Aaron, a
30-something butcher who has a longing in his life that he feels is connected
to the fact that he couldn’t devote his life to Torah study. Ezri shows him
that this longing is for something else.
The beauty of this movie is that it shows both the goodness
of the orthodox community and its dark side without judgment. We meet the
hooligans of the “Purity Police” who are nothing but Taliban with tzitzit. We
feel an increasing hostility, claustrophobia and danger as a community that was
once embracing and filled with caring and charity turns on one of its own.
For those who aren’t familiar with the intense male bonding
in orthodox communities, this movie captures the spiritual intimacy between men
that can be the result of this bonding. And who doesn’t long for spiritual
intimacy, gay or straight?
Unlike the Brokeback template, when Aaron and Ezri’s
relationship begins, Aaron is already married with several children. His wife’s
pain in this situation is played exquisitely by Ravit Rozen.
The relationship between the men does not survive this
pressure cooker environment — but the ending is more ambiguous in what becomes
of Aaron. And will inspire conversations as to the intent of the filmmaker and
its ultimate meaning.
In The Brotherhood, Lars is an outsider — a young man
whose military career is shut down because as an officer he is accused of
sexually harassing his subordinates, he finds himself shut out of the male
community he joined. Rootless, and angry, he turns to a neo-Nazi group, where
he meets Jimmy. Another interesting parallel between the films is that the
ostensibly straight man discovers his passion for the other in the water —
Aaron and Ezri at the mikvah, a ritual bath, and Lars and Jimmy in the ocean. Both
films capture all the fear, tentativeness, shame, vulnerability and passion
that can be so much part of a first male/male relationship.
Lars knows he is gay — and joins the neo-Nazis anyway, and
tests the limits by talking about Ernst Röhm, the homosexual leader of Hitler’s
Brownshirts, and who was murdered by the Nazis in a party purge. He openly
courts disaster. This is also true of the couple in Eyes Wide Open, though of
course, not by praising Nazis.
It would have been easy to make a film about sex between men
and Nazis a sexploitation film — just putting the words Nazis and gay sex in
the same sentence creates a kinky quiver for some. But just as Tabakman, the director
of Eyes Wide Open, treats the orthodox with a sense of balance, Nicolo Donato
doesn’t go for cheap titillation here, but uses the subject for a deeper
exploration of the fear and desire that exists in masculine camaraderie.
It won’t be easy for reviewers to avoid sensationalizing the
subject matter of these films, regardless of how hard the directors have worked
to make deep statements about human nature, longing for God, longing to be part
of something larger than the self, longing for tenderness and vulnerability in
a world where expressing that need is dangerous. But it would be a disservice
to the filmmakers and their audience.
I had an odd sensation towards the end of Brotherhood that
was exactly like the feeling I had watching Birth of A Nation for the first
time in a theater. Griffith manipulates his audience so that it’s hard not feel
like cheering the Klan at the end of the film. And in Brotherhood, while you
won’t feel like cheering the Nazis, you will want to see Lars and Jimmy escape
the prison they’ve walked into eyes wide open to live happily ever after. The
cruel twist that prevents this happy ending will leave a gay audience gasping
in a whirlwind of confusing emotions. This is a powerful film.
Both films, as foreign productions, move at a speed that may
not be comfortable for American audiences more interested in characters
rendered in 3D but that have no more reality than the bytes on this screen. And
while not a display of modern computer graphics, both of these films are beautifully
shot. For those who are willing to experience difficult emotions these are
richly rewarding films that should be seen. Eyes Wide Open is about to open for
limited showings at two local NYC festivals. No telling yet if Brotherhood will
find a U.S. distributor when it plays at the Palm Springs Festival this month.
If it does, don’t miss it.
If you saw the hilarious gender-twisting, smart-alecky Fagette, you'll recognize Katz — the performer in this video, and the mind behind the mischievously named Athens Boys Choir. Here though, after playing with gender roles and identity in Fagette, Katz is playing with Jewish identity, continuity, cultural connection and of course, gender. For me, it's a not as successful than Fagette, but then, how many gender-deviant, multi-media, spoken-word/homo-hop, roller-skate fantasy date music videos do you get to see? And out of that rather miniscule list, how many make you smile? So smile, and enjoy:
What I love about the title of his blog (apart from the fact that there's an echo in the names) is that it makes it clear he's not the only one. In fact, the use of the word "another" suggests he's just a garden variety gay frum jew. That actually, there are lots of them. And in truth, there are.
My great-uncle Alfred (may his memory be for a blessing) lived an orthodox life — and lived in Montreal's gay ghetto after he escaped from Auschwitz and made it across to safety in North America (now there's a story). He chose to live in Montreal rather than in NYC apart from the only family he had left because while he lived as a frum Jew, he also had relationships with men. And in that era there was no way he could be out to his remaining, surviving brother, my grandfather.
When I chose the title of this blog, it was with a kind of a wink — since there are those who think, like unicorns, people who identify themselves as queer jubus are rare if not mythical creatures. And while certainly it may seem that way to some, in the circles I run in, well, there seem to be a lot of us. We even have a few patron tzaddikim, starting with Allen Ginsberg, and running to a number of out gay men who are both jewish and serious practitioners and teachers of Buddhist meditation.
Ultimately though, it's all about crossing the boundary, and recognizing when I do so, that just as I kiss the mezuzah and remind myself of the V'ahavta prayer, that with the Shema, is a radical statement of the unity of the universe — that ultimately boundaries don't exist. From one kind of Jewish perspective it would be saying the Divine is everywhere and not separate from me and you and everything, so to put a mezuzah on the door is to remind myself that when outside or inside we are never separate. That when I leave my home and face people I don't know, I am seeing the face of the Divine manifested again and again. Or as the old joke goes: What did the Buddhist priest ask the hot dog seller? Make me one with everything.
It's one reason the subject matter of this blog is so hard to pin down. Makes it hard if I wanted to hit a large demographic and build a reader base that would enable me to live on advertising sales. I could say that it's a blog about Japanese Animation (one love of mine) and have a particular readership and ad base. Because there aren't enough queer jubus for advertisers to care about. I know. I'm also an advertising executive. Talk about boundary crossing.
Of course, for the frum, the boundary is the path. And it is indeed a path. Just not my path. There is both Gevurah and Chesed. (And of course, paradoxically, they are not separate from each other.) I take as my guide what Rebbe Nachman said about following halacha only as the vehicle. Like the parable of the monk who carries the boat on his back after he crosses the river, it has become an unnecessary burden.
As usual, I ramble.
Anyway, I truly wish the young man over at anotherfrumgayjew.com all the best on his journey. I wish him true conscious relationship with the Divine, conscious relationship with his community, and conscious relationship with a loving partner.
The New York Times City Room column reported today about the Yom Kippur fast and what people did, where they shopped for break fast, etc. And one quote stood out for me:
"Mr. Jablonsky said H&H Bagels had only 'gentile bagels' by the time he made it through a long line to the counter"
So what's a gentile bagel? I mean, I've always referred to bagels that don't quite have the toothy hardness on the outside that a real bagel ought to as goyishe bagels — donut shaped and soft bread for people who can't deal with the authentic bite of a bagel. And I think of products like blueberry bagels as not authentic. Though once you get to cinnamon raisin, it's a slippery slope. And I have to say, I haven't like H&H bagels for years now, feeling that they have softened up to appeal to a generation not used to the tough chew a bagel requires.
So I am curious. What's an authentic bagel to you? What varieties are beyond the pale (which in fact any bagel in the US would be given the original meaning of that phrase)?
Sometimes I think trailers give away the whole movie. This film is just filled with stereotypes about Jewish mothers, but who can resist Lainie Kazan? And with a movie title like Oy Vey My Son Is Gay, what else can you expect? Ess ess mein kindt.
