Abby Stein

Biography

Abby Chava Stein (Yiddish: אביגיל חוה שטיין; born October 1, 1991) is an Israeli-American author, rabbi, activist, blogger, model, public speaker, and political consultant. A former member of New York's Haredi Jewish community and an ordained Orthodox rabbi, Stein made headlines after she came out as a trans woman in 2015. After going public about her gender identity, Stein founded support groups for transgender people from religious backgrounds and published a memoir, Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. Between fall 2024 and summer 2025, she served as a part-time rabbi for Congregation Kolot Chayeinu, a progressive synagogue.

== Early life == Stein was born on October 1, 1991, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Israeli American Rabbi Menachem Mendel Stein, the sixth-born of thirteen children. Through her father, she is a member of the Ukrainian Hasidic dynasties Savran and Skver and a 10th-generation descendant of Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer, better known as Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. She was born into a large family, having over 200 first cousins. Among her cousins is actor Luzer Twersky, who would also later leave the Hasidic community. She was assigned male at birth. Stein's parents are ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews. Growing up, Stein was heavily sheltered from the outside world. She was taught Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic but not English and had very limited access to literature, music, and the internet. Though unaware of the existence of gender dysphoria, Stein exhibited signs of being transgender as a child. She wanted a dollhouse to play with and to wear bright colors, something men in her community couldn't do. At age four, her mother caught her harming her genitals with a pin, and at age nine, she prayed nightly, asking God to turn her into a girl. As a teenager, Stein was educated in both general and religious studies at several yeshivas alongside other young Orthodox men. At 16, she was expelled for questioning religion and rebellious acts. She was sent to study at Yeshiva Viznitz, an all-boys Jewish boarding school over 100 miles away, in Kiamesha Lake, New York. There, Stein had a long-term secret romance with a classmate. While still in school, Stein's parents arranged for her to be married. After screening thousands of women, they chose Fraidy Horowitz based on a combination of her family history, genetic testing, and personality. Stein was uneducated about sex, only learning that women had vaginas a few days before her wedding to Horowitz, when a rabbi instructed her on how to consummate her marriage. They married in 2010, when Stein was 18. Stein received her semikhah in 2011. Her and Horowitz's only child was born in 2012. After attending her son's circumcision ceremony, Stein had a revelation that she needed to leave the Hasidic community. She contacted Footsteps, a New York City-based non-profit organization that helps Jews leave the Ultra-Orthodox community, and with their help, she left Williamsburg in 2012, a decision she described as "life-saving." Her separation from Horowitz was an amicable one and the two agreed to shared custody of their son. Stein struggled to assimilate into mainstream society due to the cultural and language barriers, describing her experience as "being an immigrant in her own country." Stein came out to her father as transgender in 2015.

== Coming out ==

In November 2015, Stein made headlines when she came out on her blog as transgender, while studying at Columbia University, and started physical transition. She was featured in some major media outlets, including The New York Times, the New York Post, New York Magazine, NBC, the Daily Dot, and more. She has also appeared on CNN, Fox News, HuffPost Live, and Vice Canada. Stein also appeared on a number of international TV networks, newspapers, and magazines in over 20 different languages. When Stein left her community in 2012 and came out as an atheist, her parents said that no matter Stein's choices in life, she would remain their child. After coming out as trans, though, her father told her that, "You should know that this means I might not be able to talk to you ever again." Since then, her parents have shunned her and stopped talking to her altogether. She has also received some hate from her former community, but, in an interview with Chasing News (a Fox News short film company), Stein said that she received less hate than some people would have expected. She described her life post-transition as "better than I could have ever imagined". In 2020, Stein told Hadassah magazine that of her immediate family, only two of her siblings maintain contact with her. Stein was featured in the 2016 Showtime Documentary series, Dark Net, in episode 8, "Revolt".

=== Naming Celebration/bat mitzvah === On June 4, 2016, Stein celebrated her transition and announced her name change to Abby Chava Stein at Romemu, a Jewish Renewal synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In an interview with The Huffington Post, she said that even though she did not believe in God, she wanted to celebrate in a synagogue:

I wanted to show that if you claim being trans is unacceptable in traditional Judaism, well, here is a community that is not just okay with accepting me as I am, but is celebrating with me, rejoicing with me. What I'm hoping is that by sharing my story, others in the same situation will realize that you can have your name changed in a synagogue. There are so many synagogues where you can't, but there are also those where you can – the Jewish Reform movement, the Conservative movement. Within Orthodoxy, there's still a long way to go. Every time something like this is done, it's one step closer to acceptance for everyone.

== Publications ==

=== Books === Stein's first book, Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman, a memoir, was published by Seal Press (Hachette) on November 12, 2019. The book became a best seller. Becoming Eve has been translated into Dutch, and was published under the title Eigenlijk Eva: Mijn transitie van ultraorthodoxe rabbi tot trans-vrouw by De Geus on January 18, 2022. Stein's second book, Sources of Pride, an anthology of Jewish texts on "Identity, Gender, Sexuality, and Inclusivity, in Jewish Texts from the Torah to Kabbalah, Hasidic Teachings, and Contemporary Sources." The book will be a collection of her source sheets on Sefaria. It is to be published by Ben Yehuda Press, who describe the book as "Jewish views on gender and sexuality anthologized from Biblical, Talmudic, Midrashic, Rabbinic, and Chassidic sources with contemporary and personal commentary," with publication date set for September 2, 2025. Stein was profiled in, and wrote the foreword for, Peter Bussian's book of portraits, Trans New York: Photos and Stories of Transgender New Yorkers. In the foreword, she described her love for New York City – both while in the Hasidic community, and now living as a Queer person in New York.