How Hasidic Sages Supported Transgender People — 200 Years Ago

Transgender activist Abby Stein. Image by Ovrim/Wikmedia Commons

By Forverts Staff July 5, 2018

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.

Rukhl Schaechter and Zach Golden are the staff of the Forverts, the Yiddish Forward.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO