Hineini

[magid]

Thursday night I went to a screening of Hineini, a one-hour documentary about a student's struggle to get a GSA (gay-straight alliance) at Gann Academy (aka The New Jewish High School). I didn't think the film explained enough about why some people at the school might have a problem with gay Jews, which is partly why the audience was extremely unsympathetic to people who weren't immediately in favor. And while I agree that, especially in a school that prides itself on being pluralistic, there needs to be a GSA, there didn't seem to be enough attention to the textual reasons for bias, and how those texts can be read in a variety of ways (see, for instance, R. Greenberg's book).

In the end, some progress was made, in that there was a GSA established (called Open House, after the one in Jerusalem, and at least one single-sex couple went to the prom. But the following year, few were involved, and there was a perception that it was still hard to come out, especially for males (and this line frustrated me, because it was stated without any explanation of why it might be more difficult for males in a setting that has a strong halachic component).

On a more personal note, I saw still photos of a couple of people I used to be friends with. And of the four gay teachers interviewed for the documentary, I knew two of them from college, which was a surprise.

Comments

[thespisgeoff.livejournal.com]

Interesting - my thesis piece, an exploration of Jewish and gay masculinity, was called Hineni as well. Interesting. Viral, even.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me.

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

Our shul had a showing of that, which I really wanted to see, but something (probably work, knowing me) came up.
I used to be friends with Hagai, the director of the Jerusalem Open House, who is also a former MIT grad in astrophysics. Random, isn't it?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Or, small world, especially small Jewish world...

I think the movie will be out on DVD soon if it isn't already.