"From Rabbi to Trans Activist" with Abby Stein

Thursday, December 5th 2019, 6:00pm
PSR Chapel, 1798 Scenic Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709

Please join us for a special talk with Abby Stein titled "From Rabbi to Trans Activist."

Abby Stein is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and activist. She was born and raised in a Hasidic family of rabbinic descent, and is a direct descendent of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. Abby attended yeshiva, completing a rabbinical degree in 2011. In 2012, she left the Hasidic world to explore a self-determined life. In 2015 Abby came out as a woman of trans experience. Since coming out, she has been working to raise support and awareness for trans rights and those leaving Ultra-Orthodoxy.

Her story has been covered in the New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Jewish Daily Forward, Daily Mail, NBC, Vogue, Instyle, and more, as well as live appearances on CNN, Fox News, HuffPost Live, ShowTime, NowThis, PopSugarm and internationally. In 2016, Abby was named by The Jewish Week as one of the “36 Under 36” young Jews who are inspiring change in the world. In 2018 she was awarded the Pride Award by the Brooklyn Borough President. She studied gender studies and political science at Columbia University in New York City.

Her book Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman, a coming-of-age memoir, will be published by Seal Press (Hachette).

This event is co-sponsored by the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion Jewish Roundtable at the Pacific School of Religion.