Abby Chava Stein (; 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.Stein, Abby (2019). Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. Seal Press. p. 155. 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."attended Yeshiva, completing a rabbinical degree in 2011" Glaad.com, April 27, 2016."36 Under 36" Abby Stein, The Jewish Week 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.""Stein decided to start her own support group, and 25 people signed up. Most were fellow Hasids struggling with their sexuality or gender identity, Stein said. In December, they had their initial meet-up, with 12 people attending., Alix Wall, Jweekly, April 2016. Since then, her parents have shunned her and stopped talking to her altogether."I Have Daddy and Mommy Issues". The Second Transition, January 16, 2016. She has also received some hate from her former community,"This trans woman got some serious hate when she left Hasidism behind". Joseph Patrick McCormick, Pink News, November 19, 2016. 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"."DARK NET: Growing Up Trans In An Ultra-Orthodox Community" Tracy Clark-Flory, March 10, 2016.
Naming celebration 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."Next Shabbat Morning, June 4th, I will be having a Celebration at Romemu. Call it a Bat Mitzva of sorts. We will do a name change at the Torah, followed by a Kiddush, which is the traditional way of celebrating milestones in one's life. I am doing this event in public not just to celebrate my own life in transition, but to send a message to the entire Jewish-Trans community, the entire queer community, and, well, every human being: Look, no matter what you think, you can find community, you can, and will, find love. Don't feel alone, because you are not alone. One might think that tradition has no way to accommodate and celebrate us, and maybe it didn't have until now, but it does now!!!" Abby Stein, Romemu, Xoxo, May 22, 2016. 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:
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.
Essays Her writings have also been published in Queer Disbelief: Why LGBTQ Equality is an Atheist Issue, written by Camille Beredjick, edited by Hemant Mehta, and published by Friendly Atheist. Stein wrote an essay specifically for the book, titled, Trans Woman (and Former Hasidic Jew): Atheists Should Support the LGBTQ Movement ().
Stein's essay about COVID-19 and its impact on the LGBTQ community, titled, "COVID has exploded Jewish LGBTQ acceptance online. There's no going back." (originally published on Forward.com,) was included in When We Turned Within: Reflections on COVID-19, an anthology of 165 essays edited by Sarah Tuttle-Singer and Menachem Creditor.
Another one of Stein's essays on the current political climate, titled "When One Line Makes All the Difference" - reflecting on President Joe Biden's victory speech (on November 7, 2020), and his mentioning of the transgender community (originally published online by T'ruah (of which Stein is a rabbinic member), as part of their "Torah 20/20" series.) - was published in the 2021 anthology No Time for Neutrality: American Rabbinic Voices from an Era of Upheaval.
Stein's essay titled "Bring Them In," based on her remarks as part of the 24 hour "Call To Unite," hosted by Tim Shriver and Oprah Winfrey, was published in The Call to Unite.
Stein also contributed to Jewels of Elul: A Letter to Myself XII, a collection of essays published by singer / songwriter and music producer, Craig Taubman. Her essay, titled, "Dayeinu" ("Enough" in Hebrew), focused on the question of "What If?", and explored an answer to the question of "What If you would have been" born or raised in different circumstances.
Stein also contributed an essay to Kaye Blegvad's The Pink Book: An Illustrated Celebration of the Color, from Bubblegum to Battleships, discussing her relationship with the color pink, the Hasidic community and the color, and her feelings about stereotypical femininity.
Online essays "‘I Was Raised a Hasidic Man. When I Came Out as a Woman, the Sexism Shocked Me’" a piece about sexism, both in the Hasidic community, and her experience with sexism after coming out. Published in Glamour Magazine. "On the Set of ‘Unorthodox,’ I Brushed Up Against My Hasidic Past" about her experience on set of the Unorthodox TV show, where she played a Hasidic woman, wearing a traditional head covering for Jewish women. Published in Alma. "Makah/Plague of the Binary" a poem about the "plague" of the gender binary and binary thinking as a whole, counting 10 plagues. It was published by the Jewish Book Council as part of a project of 10 authors and artists responding to 10 modern plagues, for Passover 2021, the second Passover of the COVID-19 pandemic. "What I hope we learn from two Passovers in social distancing exile" a prose style piece about celebrating the second Passover with Covid restrictions. Published in the Jewish Daily Forward's Scribe. "NYC pols, don't weaponize our pain over the Mideast violence" an op-ed about the 2023 Bombardment of Gaza, calling on NYC politicians to stop weaponizing the conflict. The piece was written in collaboration with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and was also published in the print edition. "We Spoke Up For Palestine and Got Kicked Out of the White House Pride Party" an op-ed about her experience at the 2024 White House Pride Party she attended with Lily Greenberg Call as her "plus one". The piece was then covered in the online LGBTQ Nation Magazine, Autostraddle as well as by international media, including in Hebrew in the Israeli Mako, the online version of Channel 12.
Activism
After coming out, Stein started an online support group to help trans people who come from Orthodox backgrounds. Stein also said that Facebook and online support communities have been her lifeline while leaving her community, which made her realize the positive power of online communities."The heir to a rabbinic dynasty who's turned away from Brooklyn's Hasidim after finding a world she never knew existed online," sho.com, Dark Net season 1, episode 8, March 10, 2016.