From
30 May in London’s West End and selected cinemas Dr. Sandi Simcha
Trembling Before G-d is an engrossing documentary about the hidden dilemmas of gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. How can their passionate love of Judaism be justified when drastic Biblical prohibitions forbid homosexuality, viewing it as a sickness and a sin?
During the film we meet gay individuals and their partners, who struggle with this predicament, often hiding their homosexuality from every one. Only one man, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, seems content.
Interestingly, HIV plays a significant role in all this. Because of all the secrecy and silence over homosexuality, safer sex obviously gets brushed under the carpet even more.
When a Jew becomes infected with HIV, it is often the last straw, and becomes the key to their making a decision to quit Orthodox Judaism or the Hasidic community completely.
The film, shot over five years in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, LA, London, Miami and San Francisco, proved difficult to make as the establishment and many potential interviewees refused to comment in front of the cameras.
Nevertheless, what emerges from the film is a fearless testament to faith and survival and portrays the universal struggle to belong, and the desire to be accepted, with respect and dignity. Laurence Gibson
£15.00
ppbk; £10 (on benefits)
Reflections on ‘the inevitable’. That’s the focus of this beautifully produced catalogue of prose, poetry, and art supported by the National Disability Arts Forum. The book opens the debate on the sensitive and often taboo issues surrounding the experiences of people who live with life-threatening disabilities.
Positive Nation columnist Cate Jacobs contributes poems to the talented rosta of disabled artists and writers. Mail order from Disability Arts Forum. Tel 0191 2611 628. P&p £3.60. Visit: wwwndaf.org/shelflife/press
Women
& War by Jenny Matthews, £19.99 ppbk, Pluto Press & ActionAid
Until only recently women have not been allowed to fight on the frontline in the world’s armies. But things are changing.
Women soldiers are on the increase, and although in most international armed forces women continue to be unable to engage in direct combat, they are prominent in key military roles. And often do find themselves in combat zones - for instance Shoshana Johnson, one of the seven American PoWs who narrowly escaped the Iraqi war.
For
me, this was what was unique about Jenny Matthews' recent London exhibition of
Women & War photographs - the images of women fighters and soldiers from some
of the world's most troubled war zones. We're just not used to seeing them.
That
said, the exhibition concentrates mainly on images of women and children as victims
of war. Not that these are any less powerful: the little Vietnamese girl, born
without eyes, is as haunting an image as you'll ever come across, or the Ugandan
HIV positive mother of four who's lost everything but still manages to pose for
the camera. There are many images of loss: one of Matthews' most humane pictures
is a close-up of a Kabul widow in 1996 defiantly clutching a photo of her wedding
day.
Jenny Matthews has been a documentary photographer for many years and has taken pictures all over the world's war fields, including most recently Baghdad.
The book of the exhibition is a more comprehensive testament to her work on the subject and is out now. Rose de Freitas
