I didn’t support Bibi and I don’t support conservatism or radicalism or all of what Israel does, but I believe Israel has a right to exist.
There’s a crossover between Free Palestine and queer people, and what gets erased is that there’s queer people in Israel and who support Israel, but also support Palestine. We also partnered with One Table during our crowdfunding campaign for the bars, which was awesome because they are not necessarily a queer organization, but they made sure to prioritize queer Shabbat tables and did a lesbian bar-specific program.ĪSW: Beyond the question of queer acceptance, are there any conflicts involving the queer and Jewish communities that we should be talking about right now?ĮR: I think there is a polarization between if you are supportive of Israel or not. My work hasn’t gone there specifically yet, but I think there’s an opportunity for it to do so. I’m interested in Jewish People of Color, queer people, trans people. I feel like in mainstream media, we have a good amount of Jewish representation, but most of that representation is of Ashkenazi Jewish people. My work isn’t specifically Jewish but I write Jewish characters and I have a couple of scripts that involve Jewish people thinking outside the box of who can be Jewish and what that means. And I think the way Jewish people are cultivated and encouraged to be skeptics and to question and to educate ourselves, as well as the communal aspects of Judaism are similar to my queer identity. It’s where I got my sense of humor–you know, self-deprecating and anxious. I love having a Jewish cultural and ethnic identity. I do that with the Lesbian Bar Project and in Girl Talk, which talked about the disparity between emotional and physical intimacy within a queer woman’s own life to show that queer women are just as fucked up as anyone else, but also are just as beautiful and complex.ĪSW: Can you tell me more about your Jewish identity and how it shows up in your work?ĮR: I’m not a religious person, but I had a bat mitzvah. I don’t think that means representing everyone through rose-colored glasses–it’s important to show that people have dualities, complexities and faults. To me, it’s really important to take back that narrative and to tell it from a place of authenticity. Typically any story that is about marginalized people is told by the most privileged people–that’s not to say that isn’t changing, but–-for example–-the five top-grossing films that have lesbian relationships at their center in the past ten years were all directed by men. We wanted to humanize the statistics, so we told the stories of the bar owners, community activists, patrons and archivists–that was really important to answer the question, “Why should we care?”ĪSW: What do you hope audiences come away with when they watch your queer films, such as The Lesbian Bar Project or your 2018 drama Girl Talk, which explores queer intimacy?ĮR: My work is about shattering the preconceived notions of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be queer. We wanted to humanize the statistics, so we told the stories of the bar owners, community activists, patrons and archivists–that was really important to answer the question, “Why should we care?” Now we’re in development of a docu-series that is going to hopefully come out at the end of 2022! We decided to tell the stories of the bars, because with the number declining, I think it’s the most immediate way to spread the message–but we also get a portal into these people’s lives. I think the best way to learn about other people’s experiences is through exposure.įor me, film is the most powerful tool for storytelling –it combines all art forms. Lilith’s Arielle Silver-Willner talked to Erica Rose about her work, queer Jewish identity and her local lesbian bar.ĪSW: Let’s talk about the Lesbian Bar Project–I loved this line from Lisa Canistracci, owner of Henrietta Hudson in Manhattan: “When people walk through that door, you can see their shoulders going down, you can see them exhaling…that’s what it’s all about.” Why use film as a tool to advocate for these spaces?ĮR: If you live in a community where everyone looks and acts and identifies like you, that’s how discrimination and racism and bias are formed. In 2020 Brooklyn-based queer Jewish filmmaker Erica Rose collaborated with queer filmmaker Elina Street to create The Lesbian Bar Project, a documentary and call to action which urges the queer community and allies to support these few remaining bars and preserve the history of those we’ve lost. But numerous challenges are forcing them to close at an astonishing rate–there are currently only 21 left in all of the United States, compared to approximately 200 in the 1980s. Historically, lesbian bars have been the primary spaces where queer women could gather safely.