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A decade ago, a musical about the real-life friendship between Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone opened on Broadway. “Soul Doctor” received mixed reviews and closed after 66 performances.

The show has been staged in a handful of cities since then, and next week, a filmed version of a 2018 Jerusalem production will screen in movie theaters around the country, including in at least two dozen in Northern California. The one-night-only screenings on June 13, presented by Fathom Events to mark the 10th anniversary of the Broadway premiere, have been aggressively advertised in the Jewish press and on social media. Some screenings will begin with a singalong of Simone’s hit “Feeling Good.”

But some in the Jewish world are feeling outrage about the film’s release, given the multiple accusations of sexual abuse against Carlebach that have surfaced since his 1994 death.

“It’s not kosher to show the film,” Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of Berkeley told J. “How would we feel if it were about Harvey Weinstein? It wouldn’t even be a question. So how is this different?”

She added, “The world is a very messy place, but this actually has a lot of clarity. It’s not a particularly gray area.”

Decades before the #MeToo movement exposed the abuses of male celebrities, executives and others in positions of power, Gottlieb helped survivors of Carlebach’s alleged abuse go public with their stories. She contacted Lilith, a Jewish feminist magazine, in 1997 after several women confided in her about their negative experiences with Carlebach.

In March 1998, Lilith published a story by journalist Sarah Blustain under the headline “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s Shadow Side.” In it, several women spoke about how Carlebach fondled them or masturbated while rubbing up against them or while speaking to them during late-night phone calls. One was just 12 years old at the time of their encounter.

Gottlieb, who was among the first women to be ordained as a rabbi, said about 30 women, including many Bay Area residents, have personally told her about being abused by Carlebach. The total number of survivors may be higher.

“By showing the film, this will no doubt traumatize survivors,” Gottlieb said.

In response to a burst of publicity for “Soul Doctor” this week, Lilith sent the text of Blustain’s original story to its subscribers in an email Friday.

It’s not kosher to show the film. How would we feel if it were about Harvey Weinstein? It wouldn’t even be a question.

“As evidenced by this movie, its institutional support, and the continued silence about abuse perpetrated by clergy and other leaders, we are still far from teshuva (repentance) and creating safer spaces,” wrote Susan Weidman Schneider, Lilith’s editor in chief.

Sarah Seltzer, Lilith’s executive editor, told J. that the hype around the film is part of the ongoing backlash to the #MeToo movement.

“It feels like there’s a lot of erasure happening, and people just don’t want to deal with this anymore,” she said. “But this problem has not gone away. It’s very much part of every denomination and every branch of organized Jewish life.” (The latest issue of the magazine contains four first-person essays by women who were sexually assaulted in Jewish contexts.)

“Soul Doctor” writer and director Daniel S. Wise, executive producer Lisa Simone and Fathom Events didn’t respond to requests for comment sent to their publicists.

In a YouTube interview last month, Wise said he began writing the show after he was approached by Jeremy Chess, an eye doctor who was eager to bring Carlebach’s story — and his message of love and racial harmony — to Broadway.

“We really discovered a great American story,” Wise said, noting that the show highlights the influence that Simone and Black culture had on Carlebach and the budding Jewish Renewal movement. “Soul Doctor” speaks to the “greatness of cross influence and how we can heal each other and really reinvigorate each other,” he said.

The show doesn’t address the abuse allegations, instead focusing on the bond between Carlebach and Simone and their shared goal of using music to inspire the masses. An early scene shows their first meeting at a New York jazz bar. When Simone attempts to shake Carlebach’s hand, he pulls back, citing Jewish modesty laws. In a line played for laughs, he says, “I’m forbidden to ever touch any woman until one day, when I’m married, my wife. Sometimes.”

Carlebach, or Reb Shlomo as his “holy hippie” devotees called him, broke away from the Orthodoxy of his youth and founded the House of Love and Prayer synagogue and commune in San Francisco in 1968. He composed some of the most popular Jewish liturgical songs of the 20th century. However, during the #MeToo reckoning, some synagogues stopped using his melodies during services.

In 2018, Neshama Carlebach spoke at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco and addressed the resurfaced controversy surrounding her father’s legacy.

“I don’t have the language to express how much I love my father and how sad and angry I am,” she told the audience. “There are people in so much pain, and to the people in pain I say this: Get up with me, and let’s change this, and even while we cry about it, let’s sing, and let’s talk about it.”

Carlebach was never charged with a crime, and he still has many admirers, especially in Israel. But several women confronted him about his behavior during an intervention in the late 1970s. According to Neshama Carlebach, he cried and acknowledged the need for atonement. “I do believe that the actions, advocacy work and the way he raised his daughters in the last years of his life showed remarkable listening and personal accountability,” she wrote in a blog post.

Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist who lives in Albany, said she considered going to see the film on June 13 but has another commitment. As a teenager, Frankel hitchhiked from Redwood City to San Francisco to spend Shabbat at the House of Love and Prayer and was inspired by Carlebach to immerse herself in Jewish study.

“He was catalytic in my spiritual awakening as a Jew,” she said. Later, she became aware of “Shlomo’s complexity and his disturbed behavior and his narcissism.”

As a therapist, she said she has treated women who were abused by him. “He wasn’t a rapist, but he took advantage of women who were vulnerable because they looked up to him,” she said. On a personal level, she said, “I can’t throw out his teachings or his music. It’s a part of my DNA now. But he’s clearly a sick individual.”

“Soul Doctor” should not be censored or discarded, she said. Rather, Jewish community members should see it “and then have discussions about fallen heroes, mental illness and the hiding of sexual abuse.”

Frankel plans to watch the film at some point. “It sounds interesting but not as compelling as a movie that showed the light and the dark, the good and the bad,” she said.