Sabbath Queen Film Screening

Twenty-one years in the making, Sabbath Queen follows Amichai Lau-Lavie’s journey from radical drag queen to influential Rabbi of a God-optional, artist-driven New York synagogue. Join us for a screening of this documentary film and Q&A session with director Sandi DuBowski.

Registration is required, and there will be a reception at the start of the event. There will also be a lecture with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie on Tuesday, March 17. Register for that lecture here.

Film Synopsis

Filmed over 21 years, Sabbath Queen follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and 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. 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.

Rabbi Amichai

Social activist and storyteller, writer and teacher, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie (he/him) is the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC, the creator of the ritual theater company Storahtelling, Inc, and the 2026 Inaugural Recipient of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah Fellowship.

Israeli born, he’s been living in New York since 1997 and travels often between both homes. In 2016 he received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016, becoming the 39th generation of rabbis in his family — the first one to be openly queer.

Rabbi Amichai is the Co-Chair of the Executive Board of Rabbis for Human Rights, is a co-founding member of the Jewish Emergent Network, a founding faculty member of the Reboot Network, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Sulha Peace Project for Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers, the Leadership Council of the New York Jewish Agenda.

Rabbi Amichai is the subject of Sabbath Queen, Sandi DuBowski’s award-winning documentary film, 21 years in the making, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024 and touring the world.

Lau-Lavie is the author of The JOY Proposal, published in 2017 as a creative response to the reality of Intermarriage, ShaBook, published by AYIN Press in 2024, and the ongoing Below the Bible Belt blog.

Amichai is Abba to Alice, Ezra and Cai-Hallel.

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Host or Publisher Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at BU