Unfortunately, I had to go back to Johannesburg but I was told that the rest of the Cape Town tour went exceptionally well, with a turnout of 200 people at the Gitlin library for Rabbi Greenberg’s book launch. There were full screenings right through the week, and by the end of the week, the movie was clearly the topic of discussion in the community.
The Johannesburg reaction was, however, to be much more intense. From our fantastic attendances on the first Sunday screenings, it was quite amazing how many gay people felt comfortable to stand up in the cinema after the film and share their experiences. There was a real sense of validation of their experience and a need to share this.
To some extent, one of the most difficult parts of organising the tour has been the numerous struggling gay people (and their parents) approaching us desperately looking for some support.
We had one young Jewish man stand up in a cinema and ask Rabbi Greenberg, ‘why should I stay in Orthodox Judaism after I feel so rejected by it?” it was a heart-rending moment. After our screening with Dennis Davis and a wonderful interfaith panel including Bishop Paul Verryn, Brother Muhsin Hendriks and Rabbi Greenberg, I was approached by a black lesbian woman who began opening her heart to us about how she lost her talented cousin of 18 due to homophobia when her community rejected her. That week, she brought her mom to see the movie, as she felt it depicted some of the struggles faced by black gay and lesbian people in our country.
We had screenings in Pretoria and a joint event with the Equality project. We also held an event with parents, teachers and students of King David Victory Park (after two successive events were stopped by the SABJE and the Beth Din respectively) at Wits, and a book launch of Rabbi Greenberg at the Beyachad Jewish Community Centre (after lots of discussions with community leaders led to an intervention of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies which stopped this from being cancelled by the Beth Din). We had virtually full screenings at all our panel discussions. We did face quite a bit of opposition in a sense this was to be expected from a fairly conservative community. The opposition, however helped increase the interest in the film and book, and has led to a lot of discussion and debate in the community (which is still going on). It has also pointed to the need for both gay and straight people for forums for discussion and education that are more open and tolerant. Rabbi Greenberg represented for many a type of Orthodoxy that many had not experienced, full of intellectual openness and alive to the challenges of modernity.
