Abby Stein

Her grandfather, Grand Rabbi Mordechai Stein, is the current Faltishaner Rabbe and a descendant of (and named for) Reb Mordechai Twersky of Chernobyl (1770–1837).

Her family is of Polish, Ukrainian/Romanian, Serbian, and Israeli descent, with modern Ukraine being the predominant origin.

Stein grew up speaking Yiddish and Hebrew and was educated at a traditional all-boys Jewish day school.

The community in which she grew up is highly segregated by gender (which impacts almost all aspects of daily life).

Abby Chava Stein (born October 1, 1991 ) is an Israeli-American transgender author, activist, blogger, model, speaker, and rabbi.

She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community, and is a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder, the Baal Shem Tov.

Stein was born to a family of notable Hasidic leaders in 1991 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, as the sixth of thirteen children.

Her father, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Stein, is the current Savraner Rebbe of Brooklyn.

Stein is also the first woman, and the first openly transgender woman, to have been ordained by an Orthodox Jewish institution, having received her rabbinical degree in 2011, before coming out as transgender.

Stein attended the Viznitz yeshiva in Kiamesha Lake, New York, for her high school and rabbinical education; she received semikha in 2011.

In 2012, she left the Hasidic community (often referred to in Jewish communities as going "off the derech"), and in 2014 started school at Columbia University's School of General Studies.

In her book, as well as in numerous interviews, Stein credits the New York City-based non-profit Footsteps with helping her succeed after she left the Hasidic community, even calling their work "life saving."

In a March 2021 interview with the New York magazine, she credits Footsteps therapists with helping her both when she left the Hasidic community and later came out as a transgender woman.

Stein said that speaking with a Footsteps social worker "Was the first time I ever spoke to a professional where I felt listened to, as opposed to feeling like a problem that needed solving."

Stein has dual US and Israeli citizenship, with the Israeli citizenship coming through her father who was born in Jerusalem and the family goes back there several generations.

Her great-grandfather was Rabbi Yosef Meir Kahana, the Rebbe of Spinka Jerusalem.

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 2015, she founded one of the first support groups nationwide for trans people with an Orthodox Jewish background who have left Orthodox Judaism.

In November 2015, Stein made headlines when she came out on her blog as transgender 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.

Though Stein did not work as a rabbi after leaving Orthodox Judaism until at least 2016, by 2020, she had re-embraced her title as rabbi, and currently works in many capacities as a rabbi.

Stein was featured in the 2016 Showtime Documentary series, Dark Net, in episode 8, "Revolt".

On June 4, 2016, Stein celebrated her transition and announced her name change to Abby Chava Stein at Romemu, a Jewish Renewal synagogue in the Upper West Side neighborhood of New York City.

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."

In 2018, she co-founded Sacred Space, a multi-faith project "which celebrates women and non-binary people of all faith traditions".

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.

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.