Nov 22, 2007  |  By: GREG MARZULLO  | COMMENTS     

The 18th ANNUAL Washington Jewish Film Festival opens on Nov. 29 and features a strong lineup of international films, including a documentary about a beleaguered group of gay activists struggling to plan the World Pride march in Jerusalem in 2006. Showing on Dec. 9 at 12:30 p.m. at the D.C. Jewish Community Center’s Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater, 1529 16th St., N.W., “Jerusalem is Proud to Present” is an enraging reminder of how much work needs to be done across the world for gay and transgender civil rights.

Directed by Nitzan Gilady, the documentary’s first shot of the supposed holy city (“supposed” because by the film’s end, you’ll think otherwise) is of the sand-colored buildings and the glittering Dome of the Rock — a standard image with the exception of two black birds sparring in the sky. It’s brief and almost forgettable, except that it foreshadows the dark tone of the struggles to come in the “city of gold.”

Perhaps most appalling is the behavior of the so-called religious leaders  — most notably Yehuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, although all of Jerusalem’s faiths are represented. In a historic joint press conference held by Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders, Levin dubs the proposed march a “spiritual rape” of the city and “moral terrorism.” (Nice to know that the gays can unite people with thousands of years of hatred under their belts.)

The rhetoric is almost laughable (how many times can you hear the “Adam and Steve” trope before it becomes another impotent taunt from a slow-brained schoolyard bully) except that it leads to violent protests in the days before the march, with members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community burning cars, injuring police and calling for God’s vengeance (including a very biblical moment of men processing through the streets wearing sackcloth and chanting “woe”).

DESPITE THE AGGRESSION from the opposition, the Pride committee of Jerusalem soldiers on, fielding death threats and, of course, tap-dancing around a homophobic government.

One of the film’s many heroes is Sa’ar Netanel, a gay Jerusalem city councilman who shouts down his opposition on the council and stridently berates the mayor for his homophobic cowardice. (Netanel will be present at the film’s screening, and this firebrand should not be missed.)

In America, we know that there are a lot of people who are repulsed by our lives and who use their religion as an excuse for hatred, but the vitriol of Jerusalem’s faith community is shocking to behold. As Israel invades Lebanon and the Pride parade is cancelled, a large group of rabbis is praying at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, for the continued destruction of the gay lifestyle. Bombs are falling, and Orthodox Jews are still papering the city with flyers threatening the imminent murder of marchers should it continue.

Part of what’s so disturbing about the film isn’t how far away the homophobia is (halfway across the world, Americans aren’t that bad, right?), but how fine the line is between hate-speech and open defiance of what should be common human values: namely the right to life. While most ultra-conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims wouldn’t protest at soldiers’ funerals a la Fred Phelps, many of those people do believe that gays are an abomination.

The documentary begs the question: what stops fundamentalists from taking the next step? When the so-called moral authority of millions demands the destruction of an entire group of people (whether that be through death — witness Iran — or life choices — witness “reparative therapy”), who’s going to stand up and say, “This is unacceptable?”

“Jerusalem” is not so much a documentary as a sharp reminder of the tinderbox created by God-fearing madmen dictating public policy and social norms.