Tufts' LGBT group sponsored a showing of "Keep Not Silent: Three Orthodox Lesbians' Individual Extraordinary Struggles for Love" last night that was followed by an intimate discussion with the film's director, Illil Alexander.
"Keep Not Silent," a film mainly in Hebrew but with English subtitles, is a documentary about the challenges of being an orthodox Jew and lesbian in Israel.
"[There was] a bus explosion in Jerusalem, and there was one body no one came to claim, because she was religious and a lesbian," Alexander said. "For me, this is a human rights issue."
The film follows the lives of two women who are members of the "Ortho-Dykes," a group of ultra-orthodox female Jews who also happen to be lesbians. Many of the "Ortho-Dykes" have children and are married to men who know their orientations.
One husband - whose wife was married to him during the day, but would spend some nights with her female lover - said in the film that he was accepting of his wife's orientation, and added that according to the Torah, lesbianism is a lesser offense than a woman exposing her hair in public.
A woman identified as "Miriam" narrated the documentary, which took viewers through such events as two women discussing their upcoming wedding ceremony, a conversation with a rabbi and one husband's reaction to discovering his wife was a lesbian.
"The shame is not that I'm a lesbian," Miriam said in her narration. "The shame is that I haven't worked hard enough to get over it."
In discussion following the movie's showing, Alexander spoke of how she dealt with the fact that none of the characters wanted to be identified. "Everything you need to build a character" couldn't be shown, she said.
Alexander had difficulty with the question of how to hide identities "when you're trying to reveal things."
According to Alexander, the documentary "is a mirror for the secular community in general. People can be so narrow-minded." She said that some communities will use any text - be it the Torah, Koran or government documents - to make homosexuality forbidden.
"For me, this is as relevant to secular people as it is to orthodox [people]," she said. "The biggest conflict is [telling] people you care the most about; it's not the rabbis or the people in the streets."
The documentary was shown in Pearson 104 to a crowd of 10 people. The audience included a member of the Israeli consulate, as well as an Israeli soldier working in Boston.
