In a powerful collaboration between the Neustadt JAAMM Festival, Moving To Our Center (MTOC), and the Mizel Arts and Culture Center, audiences are invited to experience the award-winning documentary Sabbath Queen, a film more than two decades in the making. 

Filmed over 21 years, Sabbath Queen chronicles the extraordinary journey of Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, heir to 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. Torn between tradition and reinvention, Amichai charts a path that is as bold as it is groundbreaking—becoming a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad, and the visionary founder of Lab/Shul, an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. 

Amichai is known worldwide as a spiritual innovator, performance artist, and social activist whose work bridges the sacred and the creative. Dubbed “a Jewish renaissance man,” he has spent his life reimagining ancient rituals in ways that speak to contemporary audiences while honoring timeless traditions. Through Lab/Shul and his public voice, Amichai has challenged conventional boundaries of gender, faith, and community, offering radically inclusive models of Jewish practice that welcome people of all backgrounds and identities. 

The film follows Amichai’s quest to reinvent religion and ritual for the modern age, while grappling with issues of identity, faith, and belonging. Along the way, Sabbath Queen confronts patriarchy and supremacy, champions interfaith love, and boldly calls for peace and justice. At its heart, the film asks a timely and essential question: What does Jewish survival mean in a rapidly changing 21st century? 

Through its intimate storytelling and fearless lens, Sabbath Queen is both a personal portrait and a collective call to reimagine spirituality, community, and tradition in ways that embrace authenticity, inclusivity, and love. 

Join us for this special screening and conversation—an evening that promises to be thought-provoking, moving, and deeply resonant.