How Hasidic Sages Supported Transgender People — 200 Years Ago

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Editor’s note: We are republishing this interview with Abby Stein in honor of her new book, “Becoming Eve,” being published this week.
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts.
Abby Stein, who grew up in a rabbinical family in Williamsburg, is the most prominent Hasidic person to come out as transgender after leaving her community. She recently visited the Yiddish Forward’s studios to discuss how Hasidic texts describe transgender people. Learn about that fascinating history in the following video, in Yiddish with English subtitles.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
