'Sabbath Queen' Screening + Q&A

Amichai Lau-Lavie, the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel, finds himself torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny. Along the way, he becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad, and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Twenty-one years in the making, Sabbath Queen joins Amichai on a lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace. The film interrogates what Jewish survival means in a difficult rapidly changing 21st century.

Lau-Lavie and the film's director, Sandi DuBowski, will participate in a Q&A session moderated by Prof. Golan Moskowitz immediately following the film screening.

Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a social activist, storyteller, writer, and teacher, and Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of Lab/Shul, a NYC community he founded, along with the ritual theater company Storahtelling, Inc. Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2016, he is the 39th generation of rabbis in his family and the first to be openly queer. He was the inaugural recipient of the Lippman Kanfer Foundation's Living Torah Fellowship (2026) and named one of America's Top 50 Rabbis by The Forward (2017). He has been profiled by Time Out New York, NPR, the New York Times, and others. Lau-Lavie co-chairs the Executive Board of Rabbis for Human Rights and is a founding member of the Jewish Emergent Network.

Sandi DuBowski is the Director/Producer of Sabbath Queen and Trembling Before G-d, among other films. His award-winning work has screened at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca and Toronto, theatrically released in 150 cities, and broadcast on ZDF/Arte, BBC, Channel 4, and PBS. In 2020, he was invited to become a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

---

This program is hosted by Tulane's Jewish Studies Department and Hillel, with additional sponsorship from: the Silverstein Cinema Studies Lectureship Fund, the Office of Academic Excellence and Opportunity, the LGBTQIA+ Faculty/Staff Affinity Group, the Department of Communication, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Touro Synagogue.

Tulane is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Legally protected demographic classifications such as race, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status, etc. are not relied upon as an eligibility or participation criteria for employment or educational programs or activities.

Please contact Tracy Snyder at tsnyder3@tulane.edu at least two weeks in advance of the event if you have accessibility needs and need a disability-related accommodation to participate.