Welcoming the ‘Sabbath Queen’

Amichai Lau-Lavie is not your typical rabbi. Born in the suburbs of Tel Aviv to a family dynasty spanning 39 generations of rabbis, he’s spent his life’s journey breaking away from the mold of traditional Judaism. He is a spiritual shapeshifter on a mission to jazz up Judaism for the modern era. Part of that journey has involved performing Jewish rituals in drag.

This may sound like the plot of a quirky indie movie—and it’s not far off. Lau-Lavie’s life is the subject of a new documentary called Sabbath Queen, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June and opens theatrically at the IFC Center in New York on Nov. 22.

Director Sandi DuBowski started filming Lau-Lavie in 2003, initially drawn to his drag persona, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross. With her towering blond bouffant wig and larger-than-life persona, the rebbetzin became a kind of spiritual diva for people seeking a more unconventional approach to Judaism. Lau-Lavie even invented a backstory for the character: Born into a Hasidic family of Hungarian dancers in the 1920s and now the widow of six rabbis, she acts as a guru for the spiritual elite. Whether gracing the stage at Burning Man, BAMcafe, or various JCCs across America, Hadassah has captivated audiences with her blend of irreverent wisdom and theatrical flair.

But Sabbath Queen, ironically, focuses very little on Lau-Lavie’s drag persona. As the years passed, DuBowski shifted the narrative to focus on Lau-Lavie’s spiritual journey—a man balancing the weight of his family’s legacy with his own vision of Judaism. The result is a 105-minute film, distilled from a staggering 1,800 hours of footage, that tackles the tension between tradition and modernity, and the courage it takes to navigate the gray areas in between, especially within one’s own family. For Lau-Lavie, the son of a Holocaust survivor—who served as Israel’s consul general to New York in the 1980s—and the nephew of Israel’s former chief Ashkenazi rabbi, breaking the mold is more than a personal journey; it’s a public act that draws attention.

The film delves into various aspects of Lau-Lavie’s quest for personal truth. His first act of coming out was not about his sexuality, but rather his religiosity. While serving in the IDF, he stopped wearing his yarmulke—a quiet rebellion against his Orthodox upbringing. Around the same time, when he came out as gay, his family sent him to therapy with hopes of “correcting” his gay identity, but the experience had the opposite effect. “It completely failed to convert me from being gay,” Lau-Lavie told me, “but it did help me really own the fact that I’m no longer Orthodox.”

The film shows his family’s evolving support, especially by his mother, Joan, and older brother Benny. Lau-Lavie praises his mother as “an amazing woman who understood you’ve got to hold the family together.”

Benny, an Orthodox rabbi himself, emerges as a key figure in Sabbath Queen: both a supporter and a foil to his brother’s approach to Jewish practice. “I think he’s playing a game with Judaism,” he says in the film.

In 1997, Lau-Lavie left Israel for the U.S. to start a new life, driven by a desire to figure out what it means to be a Jew. Having seen the Jewish world from the perspective of his Orthodox Israeli family, he wanted to finally experience Jewishness in the biggest Jewish city in the world: New York. “I wanted to explore what it’s like to live Jewish first, and Israeli second,” he said.

In New York, Lau-Lavie began experimenting with innovative ways to interpret Jewish texts. In 1999, he founded Storahtelling, a Jewish theater nonprofit that reimagines Torah reading as theatrical performance, transforming “scripture into scripts.” This ultimately led to the creation of Lab/Shul; its website describes it (in ALL CAPS) as “an artist-driven, everybody-friendly, God-optional, pop up, experimental community for sacred Jewish gatherings.” Lau-Lavie is a fan of hyphens and backslashes: As Lab/Shul’s spiritual leader since its founding in 2012, his guiding mantra (among many) is “both/and,” striving to reach a “messy middle” of understanding in which complexity and pluralism are central to all aspects of life.

“When Lab/Shul first began in 2013 as a spinoff of Storahtelling, a ritual theater company, we were still youngish renegades looking to radically redefine the role of ritual in Jewish communal life, touting ‘artists are the new rabbis!’” said Sarah Sokolic, Lab/Shul’s executive director. “Amichai was not yet an ordained rabbi, yet he was leading thousands of us in reimagining our connection to Judaism, providing access and permission to experiment and take ownership over our inherited traditions. His rabbinical ordination a few years later reflected a maturity and the realization that change must come from within the ‘system,’ ultimately yielding a more lasting impact.”

In 2010, Lau-Lavie made the surprising decision to pursue rabbinical ordination in New York at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, which had only shifted its stance on gay rabbis and marriage equality a few years prior. For someone who had spent years critiquing traditional Judaism, the decision shocked his community.

“I don’t think anyone was against him becoming a rabbi,” recalled DuBowski. “But some people were a little bit like, do you really need this? Why do you need to have this title?”

Lau-Lavie saw the Conservative title as a way to gain legitimacy—especially in Israel, where progressive forms of Judaism are often marginalized. He wanted to be, as he says in the film, “a virus inside the system,” being a change-maker from within conventional Jewish frameworks: “The change agent that I want to be in the world needs to come from the middle, to approach increasingly divisive voices in Judaism.”

But he still went too far for the Conservative movement. In 2017, just a year after his ordination, Lau-Lavie faced a pivotal and emotional moment when he chose to officiate the wedding of a Jewish-Buddhist gay couple. This decision was groundbreaking, not because it involved two men, but because it involved two faiths. This act of defiance led to Lau-Lavie’s removal from the Conservative movement. As DuBowski told me, “It’s funny, because the gayness isn’t controversial. It’s the interfaithness … such a mindfuck, right?” The incident captures the ongoing tension in Jewish communities between upholding tradition and embracing modern inclusivity—an echo of DuBowski’s first feature documentary, Trembling Before G-d, which explored the struggles of gay men in Orthodox Judaism.

“I believe in turning a movie into a movement,” DuBowski said, describing his intention for the film to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about faith, identity, and community in an increasingly divided world.

It wouldn’t be a Jewish film in 2024 without addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Sabbath Queen is no exception. The film concludes with Lau-Lavie in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks, where he’s seen calling for a cease-fire and the return of the hostages. Since then, he’s visited Israel 11 times, including a visit during the nation’s mourning for the six Israeli hostages murdered in Hamas captivity.

“There’s a way to be Jewish and thoughtful and queer, and for Palestine and for Israel and nuanced,” said Lau-Lavie—although he isn’t seeing much nuance these days. Once at home on the progressive left, he now feels more distanced from it. He even wrote an op-ed for The New York Times explaining why he chose not to attend Pride this year.

“I’m glad [the documentary] is coming out right now,” he told me, “because this is a moment of crisis where, for a lot of people, Jewishness and Judaism is like …” his voice trailed off, as I interjected, “controversial.”

In June, Lau-Lavie attended the film’s premiere at the Tribeca Festival with two of his three kids he helped bring into the world with a lesbian couple. The mothers have since separated, which is the kind of messy queer dynamic that has come to define his life. All parts of his existence are wrapped in complexity from his role as a spiritual leader to his very modern family structure.

Few people are as layered or as enigmatic as Lau-Lavie. Even after watching the film and speaking with him, it’s tough to pin down exactly who he is. His drag persona is the hook that draws people in, but it turns out to be just the tip of a very gay and Jewish iceberg.

“Everything that I’m doing,” he told me, “is about taking our legacy, seeing the wisdom that is powered by Judaism, and making it human-friendly, so that it meets us where we are.”