“Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is as innovative in breaking traditions as he is in rebuilding them as a Jewish spiritual and congregational leader.”
by Renee Ghert-Zand for Times of Israel
Most rabbis ordained by the Conservative movement don’t have a drag alter-ego, officiate at an intermarriage ceremony where the gay grooms bow down to a Buddhist goddess under the huppah (wedding canopy), or count non-Jews in a minyan (prayer quorum).
But Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is as innovative in breaking traditions as he is in rebuilding them as a Jewish spiritual and congregational leader.
How Lau-Lavie became who he is now and where he hopes to take Judaism into the future are at the core of the epic documentary “Sabbath Queen” by Sandi DuBowski. The film, which follows Lau-Lavie for over 21 years, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024. It has continued to play to sold-out audiences at film festivals and theatrical releases worldwide. It will be released theatrically in Florida and San Francisco in February, and will be shown at festivals in San Diego, Atlanta, and Cincinnati.
Most rabbis ordained by the Conservative movement don’t have a drag alter-ego, officiate at an intermarriage ceremony where the gay grooms bow down to a Buddhist goddess under the huppah (wedding canopy), or count non-Jews in a minyan (prayer quorum).
But Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is as innovative in breaking traditions as he is in rebuilding them as a Jewish spiritual and congregational leader.
How Lau-Lavie became who he is now and where he hopes to take Judaism into the future are at the core of the epic documentary “Sabbath Queen” by Sandi DuBowski. The film, which follows Lau-Lavie for over 21 years, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024. It has continued to play to sold-out audiences at film festivals and theatrical releases worldwide. It will be released theatrically in Florida and San Francisco in February, and will be shown at festivals in San Diego, Atlanta, and Cincinnati.
“There is a yearning for Jewishness that looks [21st-century] reality in the eye with compassion and kindness [and inclusiveness]… At the same time, who knows what the future holds for Israel? Who knows what the future holds for American Jewry? So, to be honest and humble, I don’t know. I feel like my convictions are real. I’m coming from a real place of being in service. But who knows?” he said, when asked how history may treat his chosen path.
When Lau-Lavie was born 55 years ago in Israel, the son of a Holocaust survivor father and a British immigrant mother, it was highly likely that he would join the family business. Lau-Lavie is a scion of 38 consecutive generations of rabbis dating back a millennium. His uncle Yisrael Meir Lau and cousin David Lau were chief Ashkenazi rabbis of Israel, and his brother Benny Lau is a well-known Orthodox rabbi, author, and community leader.
However, when he was publicly outed as gay without his consent as a young man, it became evident to Lau-Lavie that he was not going to fit into the world from which he came, and would have to figure out his own Jewish way forward.
