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Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a woman
Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews.
But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life.
Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?
Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews.
But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life.
Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 12, 2019
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February 26, 2022
Abby Stein’s new book, Becoming Eve, exemplifies the pitfalls of the genre of OTD memoir. Her story differentiates itself from others, because Abby also came out as a trans woman, so hers is a story of “two transitions.” Each of Abby’s transitions intensified the other, especially as they both happened in her early twenties, shortly after Abby’s arranged marriage and the birth of her son. But the dominant story is Abby’s chafing and rebelling against the Hasidic Williamsburg community. She rebels against the faith. She rebels against the teachers and school rules. She reads the forbidden books. She engages in a taboo sexual tryst with a yeshiva classmate. And she also recounts rebellion against the rigid gender norms and against expectations that she perform manhood—she refused to get her long hair shorn for payos when she turned three because she wanted long hair, and she had an angry argument with her father at the time of her bar mitzvah. Her dysphoria is but one of the various dissonances she has with this restrictive world. This all comes to a head when she leaves the Hasidic community to find the freedom to express her gender, beliefs, ambitions, choice, etc.
This is a story very familiar to me. I too left the Satmar Hasidic community for a degree of these freedoms, as have many others. The story of veering off a prescribed life, of leaving the arranged marriage and nuclear family to self actualize in a secular world that approves of this journey, is the quintessential OTD tale. In this way, Becoming Eve is an OTD book first and a trans book second, and its faults are the kind I often take issue with in the OTD genre.
When someone leaves the Hasidic community as I did, they soon learn that their life stories fascinate others. We are still greenhorns when others start encouraging us to write a book. We are urged to get our bestseller out by casual acquaintances and strangers, by our super, gym receptionist, customer service rep, or anyone who picks up on our Yiddish-inflected accent and politely inquires if we ever had sex with a hole in the sheet (“Sorry, you don’t need to answer, but do you mind…is it true…did you?”). We are constantly advised, instructed, cajoled, informed, that we must promptly go tell our terrific stories, and that publishing is how we can get rich quick. People gasp as we describe our arranged marriages and eek us on with encouraging oohs and ahhs when we divulge how many siblings we have; they wag a finger and ask why we haven’t written the book yet. We become keenly aware that some aspects of our lives—ordinary as they were among our childhood peers—now make us special. We learn that experiences that once made us feel awkward and ashamed in our Hasidic family, like divorce and broken family relationships, have become social, if not financial, currency in the secular world. We have a book within us without even needing to be writers. It’s the OTD story.
I don’t think OTD stories are problematic at face value. In fact, it is good to tell our stories, good to share, good to read. An introspective telling can remind us that we all have blind spots, unexamined beliefs, need for social approval, occasional herd mentality. I am also a sucker for a sappy personal growth story, and I will embrace a good one, if a little skeptically. But the problem with the off-the-derech narrative is that the secular world forces our varied and vast life experiences into a mold, a narrative arc. The narrative arc is this: We, the ex-Hasidim, were born into a world that suppressed our true selves, where we were engaged in bizarre ritual and eye-popping customs. Despite this, we were special, different from the rest, and we did not remain passive. We fought our way to freedom against all odds. In this story, our character is always self-determined, enlightened, searching, deliberate. We are one thing at first (a thinking agnostic woman in Abby’s case), and we only need the opportunity to express it. When we finally tear the costume off and reveal this core, we have chosen bravery over cowardice, freedom over passivity. We have done the right thing, which all others who stayed behind did not do, because they are too cultishly stupid. Our stories end on an uplifting note with some prized new experiences previously forbidden, like college, McDonalds and ill-fitted jeans.
Notice how we’re all the only agents of action directing the course of events. The language is “we leave,” or “we become,” we “went OTD,” and “we stopped believing.” It is never “we were pushed out,” or “we couldn’t find our place,” or “we were told we are no longer one of the group,” or “we had a falling out with a business partner or an affair that created a lot of wounds.” The natural interpersonal issues, rifts, instability, personality clashes, our own mess-ups and indulgences, or our appetite for greener grass, none of those are mentioned.
This story is far from the version Hasidim tell about us, which is often more complicated by bad ingredients like nasty gossip and schadenfreude, but which also includes more honest aspects, like family feuds and individual bad actors. For instance, I tell myself a narrative that somewhat indulges these tropes, but my mother would tell you a very different story. She recently surprised me when she told me quite angrily that my mother-in-law, called a shvigger, was the reason I left. “She ruined your life, your shvigger. She ruined it. All because of her…”
Did I leave, or did my mother-in-law make me? I would not compliment my former mother-in-law with so much power or with pronouncing my life ruined—it is very decidedly not, even if it is nothing I’d foreseen for myself. But there is probably some truth to my mother’s version—after all, the evil mother-in-law from hell was a real nightmare I once dealt with. The friction that existed between her and me was like many of messy sub-plots (or main plots) that are inevitable in our lives.
The petty dramas and the fights that break out over whose challah recipe we might use will never play a real part in our OTD “bestsellers,” because these parts don’t fit the arc. No chatty beautician has ever listened to me tell of the wedge my mother-in-law drove into my marriage, and exclaimed, “You must write a book! My, that’s crazy, unbelievable, you gotta write a book!” Readers don’t necessarily want to hear what shaped me, only the life events that fit together to make a coming-of-age story, and perhaps elements that sound foreign or strange to them. They are flattered to hear that their lifestyle and values are worth the steepest sacrifices of the closest relationships in our lives. I deeply dislike books that indulge the audience on this. Such books are not enriching, and we don’t learn to have empathy for people different from us. They might tell a “true story,” but true only in the factual sense, not in terms of personal honesty.
Abby Stein’s memoir has many moments of candid, simple, sweet retelling, but for every page of straightforward memories, there is one that feels inorganic. She looks back, digging to find the moments that prophesied her trajectory. A precocious young child who was born premature and had some early health problems (a hernia at two), she remembers that she wanted a girl’s dollhouse after one of her surgeries, and tells us that this proves her future. When she turned three, she cried and resisted the traditional boy’s haircut, here also, we are told, because of how it conflicted with her true self. And as soon as she was a teen, she began questioning the faith. “I had no faith in anything I was told. If they were wrong about my gender, they could be wrong about God, too,” she writes. “I noticed these disconnects everywhere. I found them in every step.” The book tells us that the adult Abby was there all along, from the earliest age, only waiting to break free. The reader is almost relieved not to hear some anecdote about her crying during her circumcision, at eight days old, to revolt against archaic faith and gender pronouncements.
Full review: https://friedavizel.com/2019/12/11/be...
This is a story very familiar to me. I too left the Satmar Hasidic community for a degree of these freedoms, as have many others. The story of veering off a prescribed life, of leaving the arranged marriage and nuclear family to self actualize in a secular world that approves of this journey, is the quintessential OTD tale. In this way, Becoming Eve is an OTD book first and a trans book second, and its faults are the kind I often take issue with in the OTD genre.
When someone leaves the Hasidic community as I did, they soon learn that their life stories fascinate others. We are still greenhorns when others start encouraging us to write a book. We are urged to get our bestseller out by casual acquaintances and strangers, by our super, gym receptionist, customer service rep, or anyone who picks up on our Yiddish-inflected accent and politely inquires if we ever had sex with a hole in the sheet (“Sorry, you don’t need to answer, but do you mind…is it true…did you?”). We are constantly advised, instructed, cajoled, informed, that we must promptly go tell our terrific stories, and that publishing is how we can get rich quick. People gasp as we describe our arranged marriages and eek us on with encouraging oohs and ahhs when we divulge how many siblings we have; they wag a finger and ask why we haven’t written the book yet. We become keenly aware that some aspects of our lives—ordinary as they were among our childhood peers—now make us special. We learn that experiences that once made us feel awkward and ashamed in our Hasidic family, like divorce and broken family relationships, have become social, if not financial, currency in the secular world. We have a book within us without even needing to be writers. It’s the OTD story.
I don’t think OTD stories are problematic at face value. In fact, it is good to tell our stories, good to share, good to read. An introspective telling can remind us that we all have blind spots, unexamined beliefs, need for social approval, occasional herd mentality. I am also a sucker for a sappy personal growth story, and I will embrace a good one, if a little skeptically. But the problem with the off-the-derech narrative is that the secular world forces our varied and vast life experiences into a mold, a narrative arc. The narrative arc is this: We, the ex-Hasidim, were born into a world that suppressed our true selves, where we were engaged in bizarre ritual and eye-popping customs. Despite this, we were special, different from the rest, and we did not remain passive. We fought our way to freedom against all odds. In this story, our character is always self-determined, enlightened, searching, deliberate. We are one thing at first (a thinking agnostic woman in Abby’s case), and we only need the opportunity to express it. When we finally tear the costume off and reveal this core, we have chosen bravery over cowardice, freedom over passivity. We have done the right thing, which all others who stayed behind did not do, because they are too cultishly stupid. Our stories end on an uplifting note with some prized new experiences previously forbidden, like college, McDonalds and ill-fitted jeans.
Notice how we’re all the only agents of action directing the course of events. The language is “we leave,” or “we become,” we “went OTD,” and “we stopped believing.” It is never “we were pushed out,” or “we couldn’t find our place,” or “we were told we are no longer one of the group,” or “we had a falling out with a business partner or an affair that created a lot of wounds.” The natural interpersonal issues, rifts, instability, personality clashes, our own mess-ups and indulgences, or our appetite for greener grass, none of those are mentioned.
This story is far from the version Hasidim tell about us, which is often more complicated by bad ingredients like nasty gossip and schadenfreude, but which also includes more honest aspects, like family feuds and individual bad actors. For instance, I tell myself a narrative that somewhat indulges these tropes, but my mother would tell you a very different story. She recently surprised me when she told me quite angrily that my mother-in-law, called a shvigger, was the reason I left. “She ruined your life, your shvigger. She ruined it. All because of her…”
Did I leave, or did my mother-in-law make me? I would not compliment my former mother-in-law with so much power or with pronouncing my life ruined—it is very decidedly not, even if it is nothing I’d foreseen for myself. But there is probably some truth to my mother’s version—after all, the evil mother-in-law from hell was a real nightmare I once dealt with. The friction that existed between her and me was like many of messy sub-plots (or main plots) that are inevitable in our lives.
The petty dramas and the fights that break out over whose challah recipe we might use will never play a real part in our OTD “bestsellers,” because these parts don’t fit the arc. No chatty beautician has ever listened to me tell of the wedge my mother-in-law drove into my marriage, and exclaimed, “You must write a book! My, that’s crazy, unbelievable, you gotta write a book!” Readers don’t necessarily want to hear what shaped me, only the life events that fit together to make a coming-of-age story, and perhaps elements that sound foreign or strange to them. They are flattered to hear that their lifestyle and values are worth the steepest sacrifices of the closest relationships in our lives. I deeply dislike books that indulge the audience on this. Such books are not enriching, and we don’t learn to have empathy for people different from us. They might tell a “true story,” but true only in the factual sense, not in terms of personal honesty.
Abby Stein’s memoir has many moments of candid, simple, sweet retelling, but for every page of straightforward memories, there is one that feels inorganic. She looks back, digging to find the moments that prophesied her trajectory. A precocious young child who was born premature and had some early health problems (a hernia at two), she remembers that she wanted a girl’s dollhouse after one of her surgeries, and tells us that this proves her future. When she turned three, she cried and resisted the traditional boy’s haircut, here also, we are told, because of how it conflicted with her true self. And as soon as she was a teen, she began questioning the faith. “I had no faith in anything I was told. If they were wrong about my gender, they could be wrong about God, too,” she writes. “I noticed these disconnects everywhere. I found them in every step.” The book tells us that the adult Abby was there all along, from the earliest age, only waiting to break free. The reader is almost relieved not to hear some anecdote about her crying during her circumcision, at eight days old, to revolt against archaic faith and gender pronouncements.
Full review: https://friedavizel.com/2019/12/11/be...
November 13, 2019
“In a Community that is so sheltered that doesn’t even fight or hate the LGBTQ+ Community but simply ignores it, I had no idea there was anyone else like me”.
“Without the Internet, without English, I had no name for what I felt”.
First born son, Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel, came from parents descended from rabbinic dynasties—(Czarist Russia or Austria-Hungarian), royal families of Hasidism.
Avrom had five older sisters.
[12 siblings total in Avrom’s family].
He lived in a secluded Hasidic community - in New York - that created an internal economy, with it’s own clothing, shops, brands, schools, charities, and every other organization it needed to lead an independent homogenous lifestyle with as little outside influence as possible.
He was groomed from birth to follow the lifestyle path at the Hasidic tradition.
Avrom got married at age 18, finished his rabbinical studies, and got his rabbinical degree.
When he was 20, his son was born.
It became more and more difficult for him to stay in a community, to stay religious, and to continue life looking like a man. The Hasidic community is one of the most gender segregated societies in the United States. Gender roles are deeply ingrained in that lifestyle.
Avrom’s story includes two interwoven transitions: coming out at the ultra orthodoxy, and coming out as a trans woman.
Twenty four years passed before Avrom stood in a synagogue, one her father would never consider to be kosher, and received her new name.
“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A lot happened in between”.
“The school was filled with students who questioned little and seemed entirely content with our way of life. And then there was me, questioning everything we were supposed to believe and twisting myself up in knots”.
“On the one hand, I wanted to succeed in a world that was the only one I’ve ever known. I wanted to excel at yeshiva and become a rabbi. There was no other way of life that was even in my periphery. So I tried to suppress my religious misgivings, to squash my doubts and disbelief’s, even when I knew they were right”
“On The other hand, it was hard to ignore them”.
As a teenager with a sometimes a hot temper and feelings of being a girl, there were days when Avram couldn’t pray because he doubted God’s existence.
I couldn’t pull away from this story - lost a nights sleep...
It’s courageous...
It’s fascinating...
He/*she* was born with an magnificent imagination... and a brilliant inquisitive mind.
This is an exhilarating memoir - a journey of inspiring awakening and self discovery.
An absolutely engrossing - heartfelt story of a girl-coming-of-age!!!
I feel TONS-of-LOVE for Eve....
who is actually now named
**Abby Chava Stein**...( an American Transgender, Activist , Rabbi, and model)
“Without the Internet, without English, I had no name for what I felt”.
First born son, Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel, came from parents descended from rabbinic dynasties—(Czarist Russia or Austria-Hungarian), royal families of Hasidism.
Avrom had five older sisters.
[12 siblings total in Avrom’s family].
He lived in a secluded Hasidic community - in New York - that created an internal economy, with it’s own clothing, shops, brands, schools, charities, and every other organization it needed to lead an independent homogenous lifestyle with as little outside influence as possible.
He was groomed from birth to follow the lifestyle path at the Hasidic tradition.
Avrom got married at age 18, finished his rabbinical studies, and got his rabbinical degree.
When he was 20, his son was born.
It became more and more difficult for him to stay in a community, to stay religious, and to continue life looking like a man. The Hasidic community is one of the most gender segregated societies in the United States. Gender roles are deeply ingrained in that lifestyle.
Avrom’s story includes two interwoven transitions: coming out at the ultra orthodoxy, and coming out as a trans woman.
Twenty four years passed before Avrom stood in a synagogue, one her father would never consider to be kosher, and received her new name.
“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A lot happened in between”.
“The school was filled with students who questioned little and seemed entirely content with our way of life. And then there was me, questioning everything we were supposed to believe and twisting myself up in knots”.
“On the one hand, I wanted to succeed in a world that was the only one I’ve ever known. I wanted to excel at yeshiva and become a rabbi. There was no other way of life that was even in my periphery. So I tried to suppress my religious misgivings, to squash my doubts and disbelief’s, even when I knew they were right”
“On The other hand, it was hard to ignore them”.
As a teenager with a sometimes a hot temper and feelings of being a girl, there were days when Avram couldn’t pray because he doubted God’s existence.
I couldn’t pull away from this story - lost a nights sleep...
It’s courageous...
It’s fascinating...
He/*she* was born with an magnificent imagination... and a brilliant inquisitive mind.
This is an exhilarating memoir - a journey of inspiring awakening and self discovery.
An absolutely engrossing - heartfelt story of a girl-coming-of-age!!!
I feel TONS-of-LOVE for Eve....
who is actually now named
**Abby Chava Stein**...( an American Transgender, Activist , Rabbi, and model)
February 10, 2020
When I read the blurb, I didn't assume that this would be a book that would make me stay up two hours after I had planned to go to sleep, simply because I couldn't stop reading it. And yet, I thought I'd only read one chapter to see what it's like and next thing I knew, I was 40 pages away from the end.
As I am also on the trans-Jewish intersection, I was really excited to read this. I've heard of Abby Stein's story before (and will forever feel bad for not going to see her speak in Tel Aviv when she was there) but there was something so delightful about hearing her story in her own words, about suddenly seeing all these tiny moments come together and create who she is. This book is well written and has a fantastic flow to it.
Abby writes about her own experiences and I truly hope people won't see this version as the only version of Hasidic life. I'm not Hasidic but I've experienced so much kindness from this community and I think in many ways, us secular people have a lot to learn from them. Like, family values, dedication, and community values. True, there are many negative aspects and Abby describes them but I feel it's important to acknowledge that the good exists too, even if it was not right for Abby.
On a good week, I study about 6 hours of Talmud which compared to a Hasidic person is virtually nothing but I have to say, Talmud is seriously hard and it's frustrating to hear voices around me belittle it, as if studying Talmud isn't as hard as reading Plato (in my opinion, it's so much harder). I loved that Abby had this passion for studying and that through this all, the studying helped her.
There was a time when I thought I'd leave Judaism because of the gender roles. This idea that women are, in any way, less than men or that I will forever have to pick a side of the mechitza, that my love for a woman could be wrong, it all struck me as impossible. And yet, finding out that Judaism doesn't have to be this way was one of the best things that happened to me. Ultimately, Judaism is so beautiful and I'm so happy that Abby Stein found her way to be happy within Judaism.
Last year, I spent two months roaming around Europe and decided that I would do my best to go to a Shabbat service in each city I was in. I also didn't want to go to Chabad because I wanted to know what the local community was like. Apart from Copenhagen (seriously, Danish Jews, get yourself together), I succeeded and it was awesome to see how connected we all are. Most of the synagogues I went to were egalitarian, on the Conservative-Reform spectrum and even though these communities vary so greatly, we are still the same people. Ever synagogue had a different way of singing some of the songs but the prayers and the traditions were all the same and it's amazing to think that even though this Judaism is so new, the traditions are there and it's just the perfect balance between old and new. The same statistics about how egalitarian Judaism is growing that cause Ultra-Orthodox people to panic bring me so much joy because we're actively making Judaism better.
Surprisingly, this book is a lot more about religion than it is about trans issues. Talking about people coming out with dramatic sentences like, "ahh, she's so brave" or "so inspiring" is a cliche but I genuinely think leaving religious communities is one of the hardest things a person can do, trans issues aside.
My sole critique is that the storytelling was a little odd. I mean, some periods of time are very drawn out while others are skipped over. I understand that the actual process of coming out must have been challenging but from the moment she learns that she's trans, the narrative essentially jumps to her abandoning the religion and that's a huge shame because I'm positive there was something that happened in between. Heck, I'm curious how and when did she learn English and what was it like to suddenly leave the Hasidic community and go to Colombia University.
All in all, this book is well worth the hype. I know I pretty much say this about every trans biography I read but this really is one of the best ones I've read. I think Stein does a great job at being accessible towards people who might not know much about Judaism or transness.
What I'm Taking With Me
- Hebrew websites about queerness helped Abby Stein figure it out. It's awesome to realize that they help Hasidic Jews as well as Israelis.
- The other day I came across a new way of typing in Hebrew where the gendered words can be read both as feminine and as masculine and I can't help but think that this is a good beginning, we're going to be able eventually to force Hebrew to be feminist and still keep our traditions.
- I absolutely adore the idea that a direct descendant of Baal Shem Tov is a trans activist.
- One day, I'm going to know Yiddish. I absolutely feel like I have to and that it's a shame that we've brought Hebrew back but are killing Yiddish.
- It's wild to think that there are Americans that know more Aramaic than English.
As I am also on the trans-Jewish intersection, I was really excited to read this. I've heard of Abby Stein's story before (and will forever feel bad for not going to see her speak in Tel Aviv when she was there) but there was something so delightful about hearing her story in her own words, about suddenly seeing all these tiny moments come together and create who she is. This book is well written and has a fantastic flow to it.
Abby writes about her own experiences and I truly hope people won't see this version as the only version of Hasidic life. I'm not Hasidic but I've experienced so much kindness from this community and I think in many ways, us secular people have a lot to learn from them. Like, family values, dedication, and community values. True, there are many negative aspects and Abby describes them but I feel it's important to acknowledge that the good exists too, even if it was not right for Abby.
On a good week, I study about 6 hours of Talmud which compared to a Hasidic person is virtually nothing but I have to say, Talmud is seriously hard and it's frustrating to hear voices around me belittle it, as if studying Talmud isn't as hard as reading Plato (in my opinion, it's so much harder). I loved that Abby had this passion for studying and that through this all, the studying helped her.
There was a time when I thought I'd leave Judaism because of the gender roles. This idea that women are, in any way, less than men or that I will forever have to pick a side of the mechitza, that my love for a woman could be wrong, it all struck me as impossible. And yet, finding out that Judaism doesn't have to be this way was one of the best things that happened to me. Ultimately, Judaism is so beautiful and I'm so happy that Abby Stein found her way to be happy within Judaism.
Last year, I spent two months roaming around Europe and decided that I would do my best to go to a Shabbat service in each city I was in. I also didn't want to go to Chabad because I wanted to know what the local community was like. Apart from Copenhagen (seriously, Danish Jews, get yourself together), I succeeded and it was awesome to see how connected we all are. Most of the synagogues I went to were egalitarian, on the Conservative-Reform spectrum and even though these communities vary so greatly, we are still the same people. Ever synagogue had a different way of singing some of the songs but the prayers and the traditions were all the same and it's amazing to think that even though this Judaism is so new, the traditions are there and it's just the perfect balance between old and new. The same statistics about how egalitarian Judaism is growing that cause Ultra-Orthodox people to panic bring me so much joy because we're actively making Judaism better.
Surprisingly, this book is a lot more about religion than it is about trans issues. Talking about people coming out with dramatic sentences like, "ahh, she's so brave" or "so inspiring" is a cliche but I genuinely think leaving religious communities is one of the hardest things a person can do, trans issues aside.
My sole critique is that the storytelling was a little odd. I mean, some periods of time are very drawn out while others are skipped over. I understand that the actual process of coming out must have been challenging but from the moment she learns that she's trans, the narrative essentially jumps to her abandoning the religion and that's a huge shame because I'm positive there was something that happened in between. Heck, I'm curious how and when did she learn English and what was it like to suddenly leave the Hasidic community and go to Colombia University.
All in all, this book is well worth the hype. I know I pretty much say this about every trans biography I read but this really is one of the best ones I've read. I think Stein does a great job at being accessible towards people who might not know much about Judaism or transness.
What I'm Taking With Me
- Hebrew websites about queerness helped Abby Stein figure it out. It's awesome to realize that they help Hasidic Jews as well as Israelis.
- The other day I came across a new way of typing in Hebrew where the gendered words can be read both as feminine and as masculine and I can't help but think that this is a good beginning, we're going to be able eventually to force Hebrew to be feminist and still keep our traditions.
- I absolutely adore the idea that a direct descendant of Baal Shem Tov is a trans activist.
- One day, I'm going to know Yiddish. I absolutely feel like I have to and that it's a shame that we've brought Hebrew back but are killing Yiddish.
- It's wild to think that there are Americans that know more Aramaic than English.
January 3, 2020
It's a unique topic to be sure, a compelling story simply and cleanly told. But there is a big gap between the last chapter and the epilogue, and that dampens the memoir experience. I don't know why the past few years of Abby's path from Hasidic man to non-Orthodox woman was left out, whether it was too painful/personal or the book was rushed to publish before complete. But it really bothers me. If you're going to write a memoir, tell the story in full, otherwise write an article or a blog or some format where it doesn't stand out so glaringly.
October 12, 2021
I am not sure how I wanted to rate this book. For now I will leave it as a 3.0.
I have to decide what I was expecting from reading this memoir.
The author makes a strong point that tolerance and understanding are not suggestions made within ultra religious communities and families when a norm changes. I give Eve kudos as she bares her soul to us but more so to her family which Im sure takes guts to do within her strict unforgiving community she describes.
I was looking forward to understanding every viewpoint within this memoir; yet understanding the right for privacy.
I wondered about emotions of Eve's x-wife. Did she have more empathy for Eve as a woman herself. and curious if there was any initial blame put on her as a female by the community?
reply | edit | delete | flag *
I have to decide what I was expecting from reading this memoir.
The author makes a strong point that tolerance and understanding are not suggestions made within ultra religious communities and families when a norm changes. I give Eve kudos as she bares her soul to us but more so to her family which Im sure takes guts to do within her strict unforgiving community she describes.
I was looking forward to understanding every viewpoint within this memoir; yet understanding the right for privacy.
I wondered about emotions of Eve's x-wife. Did she have more empathy for Eve as a woman herself. and curious if there was any initial blame put on her as a female by the community?
reply | edit | delete | flag *
December 16, 2019
3.5. I’m fascinated by memoirs of leaving and living in Orthodox Judaism, but this one took things even a step further as Abby Stein not only left the Orthodox community, she transitioned to female after being a married rabbi with a child. My disappointment with the book was the lack of emphasis on the transition itself. How did she tell her wife, how is she allowed by the community to still have a relationship with her son. How difficult was the physical transition, etc. maybe there’s another book coming?
Read
May 3, 2020This was a good read - though it ended very abruptly, like the publisher could not decide whether to order in two volumes or just one. I have very strong feelings about the topic, so it might take me a while to review the book in more detail.
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Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library (currently closed, but I got this one just before they closed)
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Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library (currently closed, but I got this one just before they closed)
December 11, 2019
There’s no question that Ms. Stein is an amazingly brave and strong pioneer. I was excited to read her book. Sadly, I was disappointed. The detail devoted to the readings and education of the Hassid way of life is interesting but much too much, leaving out so many opportunities to expand on the personal trials and challenges, such as the relationship with the wife and child.
I’m wondering about what made Ms. Stein leave her marriage and child, and why they didn’t talk more about her later life.
I’m wondering about what made Ms. Stein leave her marriage and child, and why they didn’t talk more about her later life.
November 18, 2019
There are many memoirs about transitioning and many memoirs about leaving ultra-Orthodoxy, but this is the first to ever combine them. "Becoming Eve" is a groundbreaking story told with an authentic voice. Abby shares both the good and bad parts of growing up Hasidic, bringing us into her close-knit, loving family while shining light on problematic aspects of the lifestyle's strict need to conform. The book's tone is hopeful and positive, even after everything she's been through, which is refreshing to see in this kind of memoir. As Abby says, to be continued! I hope she writes more books about her life and her Torah.
April 25, 2023
hell yeah abby!!!
Read
January 10, 2020Reading the reviews, I see some complaints that Abby skips a number of years, in between coming out and the present day. I think it's important that we remember that we (as readers) are not entitled to every event of her life. It makes complete sense that she would not want to share details about people -- especially her son -- whose privacy she wants to protect. Furthermore, there may be events that she isn't sharing because they are painful. Or, simply, she might not want every detail of her life to be out there for public consumption, for no deeper reason than that. And, in fact, I think we should embrace the omissions, as they make the things she does share more meaningful.
January 24, 2022
Becoming Eve isn’t my first foray into reading the stories of people who have left ultra orthodoxy, as I am a Jewish woman that was raised primarily secular in an interfaith/agnostic family. As gently as I can say this, I don’t think I would have finished the book if I wasn’t Jewish. While I can understand the necessity to list family and the relationships for the overall understanding of the book, after awhile I found myself focusing on how everybody is related to everyone else and less on the action of the story. What kept me engaged was reading her story specifically as a Jewish child, and how Judaism, especially Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, impacted her relationship with gender and sex. In my own relationship to Judaism I have analyzed, questioned and lamented how women are treated, and have sought out spaces in which i can feel included during services.
I also really enjoyed reading about the familial structure and familial culture of different families and dynasties that are still under this same large Chassidic umbrella. The little idiosyncrasies that separate one family from another while still fitting into these tight constructs is just so interesting to me, especially because we do share a religion. Still I don’t know how engaged I myself would have been if I wasn’t Jewish.
My truest gripe with Becoming Eve is the ending, which left me very unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The action is consistently moving forward in a pretty linear way until the birth of her son, and then the drop off is almost jarring. I completely understand the desire and necessity in withholding information (I’ve watched Abby in interviews fervently defend her son’s right to privacy, which I applaud and respect), but the pace of the story needed more of a tapering that went past a handful of pages. A book that wasn’t so tight to a timeline could probably be afforded this kind of abrupt finish. Reading the epilogue (and further the acknowledgments) with so much time lost in between, after so much chronological telling I felt unfulfilled.
I blame the editor for this personally; there’s absolutely a way to slowly end a book, protect identities and leave room for a second book. But this might just be a “me” sentiment. I’m not an editor, so there might have been a very good reason for this choice, it just wasn’t my taste.
I think this book stands out from other “OTD” stories, because of the added layer of gender identity, and Abby does a great job of letting the reader in on the risk of her feelings and those of the people around her. Leaving the community is one thing, transitioning is an added “offense,” for lack of a better word.
I think everyone can take a little something away from Becoming Eve, whether that be a feeling of sympathy or empathy or even sisterhood. And not just toward other Jews like Abby, but to those who haven’t been able to escape the insular communities they were born into. Her bravery is so commendable and I’m thankful to have been able to read her story. I’m certain it helped someone, Jewish or not, take one step towards becoming their truest self.
I also really enjoyed reading about the familial structure and familial culture of different families and dynasties that are still under this same large Chassidic umbrella. The little idiosyncrasies that separate one family from another while still fitting into these tight constructs is just so interesting to me, especially because we do share a religion. Still I don’t know how engaged I myself would have been if I wasn’t Jewish.
My truest gripe with Becoming Eve is the ending, which left me very unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The action is consistently moving forward in a pretty linear way until the birth of her son, and then the drop off is almost jarring. I completely understand the desire and necessity in withholding information (I’ve watched Abby in interviews fervently defend her son’s right to privacy, which I applaud and respect), but the pace of the story needed more of a tapering that went past a handful of pages. A book that wasn’t so tight to a timeline could probably be afforded this kind of abrupt finish. Reading the epilogue (and further the acknowledgments) with so much time lost in between, after so much chronological telling I felt unfulfilled.
I blame the editor for this personally; there’s absolutely a way to slowly end a book, protect identities and leave room for a second book. But this might just be a “me” sentiment. I’m not an editor, so there might have been a very good reason for this choice, it just wasn’t my taste.
I think this book stands out from other “OTD” stories, because of the added layer of gender identity, and Abby does a great job of letting the reader in on the risk of her feelings and those of the people around her. Leaving the community is one thing, transitioning is an added “offense,” for lack of a better word.
I think everyone can take a little something away from Becoming Eve, whether that be a feeling of sympathy or empathy or even sisterhood. And not just toward other Jews like Abby, but to those who haven’t been able to escape the insular communities they were born into. Her bravery is so commendable and I’m thankful to have been able to read her story. I’m certain it helped someone, Jewish or not, take one step towards becoming their truest self.
January 20, 2020
Stein gives here an incredibly detailed look at her upbringing, assigned male at birth in a historical rabbinic family in the New York Hasidic community. I appreciated not only her reflections on what was stifling and repressive in that context, but also her attention paid to what she loved and what nourished her growing up.
There are two challenging aspects for me in the portions of her story related to gender. One is that, though she fought it until her twenties, she reports that as early as perhaps 2 or 3 years old there was some part of her certain she was a girl. That early binary certainty is simply foreign to my existence, and I sometimes bristle at the broad room made for those kinds of trans narratives to the exclusion of others. The second challenging part is that its 25 pages from the end of the book before she leaves the Hasidic community, learns the word transgender and lives as a woman. While her story is of course hers to tell, it was tough to come through so much of her life that fit so poorly, and then rush through the peace she found. My experience of the end feels especially abrupt and unfinished with her relationship to her beloved son completely unmentioned and unaddressed after her transitions.
It's otherwise an easy read, and clearly a labor of love, though often a bit dry. I know someone will see themselves in this, I know spirits will be lifted and I'm glad for that.
There are two challenging aspects for me in the portions of her story related to gender. One is that, though she fought it until her twenties, she reports that as early as perhaps 2 or 3 years old there was some part of her certain she was a girl. That early binary certainty is simply foreign to my existence, and I sometimes bristle at the broad room made for those kinds of trans narratives to the exclusion of others. The second challenging part is that its 25 pages from the end of the book before she leaves the Hasidic community, learns the word transgender and lives as a woman. While her story is of course hers to tell, it was tough to come through so much of her life that fit so poorly, and then rush through the peace she found. My experience of the end feels especially abrupt and unfinished with her relationship to her beloved son completely unmentioned and unaddressed after her transitions.
It's otherwise an easy read, and clearly a labor of love, though often a bit dry. I know someone will see themselves in this, I know spirits will be lifted and I'm glad for that.
January 22, 2021
A very interesting memoir of growing up as rabbinic "royalty" in a Hasidic community while feeling estranged from one's body and from the strict gender socialization of that community. It's always fascinating to see inside a closed community, and Stein is a good enough writer to make that world come alive.
However, Stein's memoir is only about life inside that community, which means that some of what I was intrigued about -- the decision to leave the community, what it was like to get a GED and start a secular education, how she supported herself financially, etc. -- is barely mentioned in the last paragraph. There have been other memoirs that covered such material, so maybe Stein didn't think it necessary to include it here, but I'd grown interested enough in her as a person that I wanted to hear about her specific experiences.
Also, I couldn't help but wonder what role the hyper-separate gender roles of Hasidism played in Stein's gender struggles. She talks a little bit at the end about gender as a social construct and about gender dysphoria, and I would have liked to hear more reflection from her about whether she would have been less at war with her body in a less binary world. Maybe that's a reflection for her next book!
However, Stein's memoir is only about life inside that community, which means that some of what I was intrigued about -- the decision to leave the community, what it was like to get a GED and start a secular education, how she supported herself financially, etc. -- is barely mentioned in the last paragraph. There have been other memoirs that covered such material, so maybe Stein didn't think it necessary to include it here, but I'd grown interested enough in her as a person that I wanted to hear about her specific experiences.
Also, I couldn't help but wonder what role the hyper-separate gender roles of Hasidism played in Stein's gender struggles. She talks a little bit at the end about gender as a social construct and about gender dysphoria, and I would have liked to hear more reflection from her about whether she would have been less at war with her body in a less binary world. Maybe that's a reflection for her next book!
June 26, 2021
Abby Stein shares her story so generously and vulnerably. As a queer and Jewish person, I have found very few books that I have felt reflect my identities so aptly. This book was very hard to put down, and I miss reading it already!
October 3, 2020
Amazing!!!!! I’ll come back with a more thorough review later on, but I had to put something here about how fantastic this book is. Definitely a top read for 2020.
November 11, 2020
Přímá dědička zakladatele ultraortodoxního judaistického hnutí, chasidismu, si od dětství uvědomuje, že je žena narozená v těle muže. Po narození prvního syna opouští hluboce konzervativní komunitu a podstupuje tranzici. Autobiografie s obrovským potenciálem ale bohužel dopadla jako literární Ted Talk.
Chasidská komunita Abby Stein v New Yorku – podobně jako všechny chasidské komunity po celém světě – je velmi konzervativní. Velmi konzervativní. V Brooklynu ve 21. století způsobem Východoevropanů konce 18. století, odkud chasidismus vzešel. Jejich svět sám pro sebe je až obdivuhodně neprostupný. Většina obyvatel například neumí pořádně anglicky. Školy trochu angličtiny naučí, ale skutečně jen trochu. Studenti většinu času věnují náboženským textům a židovskému právu. Každodenní život je ostatně plný pravidel.
Silně religiózní společnost je například extrémně genderové podmíněná. Chytřejší muži z dobrých rodin věnují život Bohu či právu, ostatní obchodu a vůbec fungování komunity. Ženy rodí děti, pečují o velikánské rodiny a musí být co nejcudnější. Mezi rodinami – celá komunita je velmi klanová – se například vedou spory o to, jestli jsou šedivé punčochy v pořádku, zda náhodou není vhodná pouze černá barva. Logicky zapadajícím střípkem je historka autorky, která má na své internátní škole problém, že používá málo mužné mýdlo.
Samozřejmě, že ho používá. Od neútlejšího mládí má totiž pocit, že se měla narodit jako dívka. Stejně jako jejích pět sester, které rodiče přivedli na svět před ní. Ona je však prvním vytouženým chlapcem. Tati, jak svého otce nazývá, má konečně kluka, se kterým bude moci chodit do synagogy a dělat všechny ty mužské věci, kterých je chasidismus plný.
Strašná situace, s níž si Stein pochopitelně sama neví rady, natož aby se měla na koho obrátit. Kromě Boha. Tohle je jedna z jejích dětských modliteb.
Podobně bolavých pasáží je v knize několik. Drtivá většina jich ale spojená zejména s dětstvím. Autorka totiž pojala svou autobiografii hlavně jako prostor pro zakonzervování dětských vzpomínek a deníkové smíření s vlastní rodinou, ze které si chce pamatovat všechnu lásku a péči. Na dilemata rané dospělosti spojená s ochodem a tranzicí se téměř nedostane. Nemyslím přitom, že bych vyčítal knize něco, co neslibuje. Abby svůj odchod teasuje od úplného začátku, často odkazuje k něčemu dospělému, „k čemu se ještě dostaneme“ a na konci kapitol se rozhodně nebojí používat clifhangery.
Její mládí sledujeme po dobrých osmdesát procent knihy. Několikrát se dozvíme, že byla výjimečnou studentkou, zároveň však – a to hlavně – rebelkou, která nakonec zakotvila až na třetí škole. Její rebelství bylo různé. Od obzvláště bystrého zpochybňování základů víry a komunity, přes čtení zakázaných knih po vynález speciálních papírových bomb, které po namočení v kávovém roztoku údajně smrdí jako hovno a zanechávají stopy příslušného odstínu.
Výklad je většinu času chronologický, hojně prokládaný historkami a fakty ze života komunity, rodiny a těžko zpracovatelným stopováním rodokmenů. Stein dává vskutku zakusit, jak důležitá je například zmíněná klanovost, když si tahle teta vzala bratra tohoto člověka – a to znamená tohle. Podrobné vykreslování vlastního života a okolí končí zhruba v čase svatby. Tedy v jejích osmnácti letech, kdy v ní začíná dozrávat rozhodnutí o tom, že se něco musí stát, neboť ani hyper-pilné studium, ani víra v Boha neumenšují její pocit genderové dysforie.
Biografický film v tu chvíli ale už máme za sebou. Běží pouze titulky telegraficky shrnující další život hlavní hrdinky. Dokončení rabínských studií. Narození syna. Seznámení s internetem. Vygooglení organizace pomáhající odchodu z chasidské komunity. Nešťastné sezení s nechápajícím otcem a progresivním rabínem. Poděkování organizaci. Vyautování na sociálních sítích, po kterém přichází vlna reakcí a žádostí o rozhovory.
Budiž. Přesto mně přišlo čtenářsky líto, že poslední zmíněná událost dostane víc prostoru než drobnička o tom, že po vyutování s ní přestalo deset z dvanácti sourozenců komunikovat. Stejně tak její otec s matkou, se kterýma měla velmi silný vztah. Taky nevíme, jak to celé dopadlo na manželku a syna. Nepochybuju o tom, že veřejná podpora znamenala pro mě nepředstavitelné přitakání po letech úmorných pochyb. Právě pro onu nepředstavitelnost by mě ale zajímalo, jak se s veřejným zájmem vyrovnávala. Stejně tak s odsouzením rodinou na straně druhé. Stejně jako trochu kritické posouzení většinové společnosti prizmatem hodnot, které v ní musely do jisté míry zůstat. Stein však nabídne pouze víceméně bezproblémový happy-end s jímavou hudbou.
Pak je tady ještě jedna věc. Kniha je literárně docela slabá. Největší řemeslný problém nacházím v následující pasáži, kterou uvozuje jeden z učitelů. “When the Stein student is engaged, the whole study hall can be in flames and it wouldn’t faze him. But when Stein isn’t in the mood, there is nothing you can do.” A Abby Stein dodává: „I think it’s one of the best descriptions of my character I have ever heard“.
Ale takhle přece psaní nefunguje. Anglicky píšící mají klasickou editorskou hlášku Show, don't tell. Tohle řeknou, když mladý journo vykopne reportáž slovy shrnujícím „úřady se přehazují problém jako horký brambor“, místo aby popisoval, kdo brambor hází, jak letí, jak je horký, zkrátka akci. Přesně tohle většinu času Abby Stein dělá.
Dozvíme se hodně o tom, jaká je podle sebe samé, konkrétních manifestací umožňujících čtenáři udělat si vlastní výklad jejího charakteru ale o dost méně. Dostaneme skripta o životě chasidské komunity a rodiny, vlastní prokreslené prožívání nabídne Stein spíše sporadicky. Mě by přitom velmi zajímalo, jak ji konkrétně ovlivnilo studium kabaly, po jejímž objevení se označuje za velmi mystického člověka. Čtenáře ovšem zpraví pouze o nalezení pasáže pojednávající o možném nesouladu duše a těla v otázce genderu. Ta je pro její život zásadní, proto na ni odkáže vícekrát.
Nad rámec zmínky o pasáži ale pouze dodá, že byla chvílema až omámená mysticismem.
Ona přitom umí udělat atmosféru. Když popisuje své sblížení s chlapcem na internátě, svou první láskou, s níž prožije své první erotické zkušenosti, její psaní je plné života.
To je ale výjimka. Většinu času jde ale o blogový příspěvek z ranku osobní esej, jejichž čas vypršel v roce 2017. Konec je pak jako z Ted Talku. Všechno dobře dopadlo, prosím, všichni si zatleskejme.
Magazín Prospect autorku označil za jednu z padesáti nejvlivnějších myslitelek a myslitelů roku 2020. Snad jednou. Zatím o své výjimečném myšlení pouze mluví.
Chasidská komunita Abby Stein v New Yorku – podobně jako všechny chasidské komunity po celém světě – je velmi konzervativní. Velmi konzervativní. V Brooklynu ve 21. století způsobem Východoevropanů konce 18. století, odkud chasidismus vzešel. Jejich svět sám pro sebe je až obdivuhodně neprostupný. Většina obyvatel například neumí pořádně anglicky. Školy trochu angličtiny naučí, ale skutečně jen trochu. Studenti většinu času věnují náboženským textům a židovskému právu. Každodenní život je ostatně plný pravidel.
Silně religiózní společnost je například extrémně genderové podmíněná. Chytřejší muži z dobrých rodin věnují život Bohu či právu, ostatní obchodu a vůbec fungování komunity. Ženy rodí děti, pečují o velikánské rodiny a musí být co nejcudnější. Mezi rodinami – celá komunita je velmi klanová – se například vedou spory o to, jestli jsou šedivé punčochy v pořádku, zda náhodou není vhodná pouze černá barva. Logicky zapadajícím střípkem je historka autorky, která má na své internátní škole problém, že používá málo mužné mýdlo.
Samozřejmě, že ho používá. Od neútlejšího mládí má totiž pocit, že se měla narodit jako dívka. Stejně jako jejích pět sester, které rodiče přivedli na svět před ní. Ona je však prvním vytouženým chlapcem. Tati, jak svého otce nazývá, má konečně kluka, se kterým bude moci chodit do synagogy a dělat všechny ty mužské věci, kterých je chasidismus plný.
Strašná situace, s níž si Stein pochopitelně sama neví rady, natož aby se měla na koho obrátit. Kromě Boha. Tohle je jedna z jejích dětských modliteb.
Holy Creator, I am going to sleep now, and I look like a boy. I am begging you, when I wake up in the morning, I want to be a girl. I know that you can do anything, and nothing is too hard for you, so please, I am a girl, why can’t I look like a beautiful little girl?! If you do that, I promise that I will be a good girl. I will dress in the most modest clothes, I will listen to everything Mommy and Tati ask, and I will keep all the commandments girls have to keep, in the best way possible. When I get older, I will be the best wife. I will help my husband study Torah all day and all night, I will cook the best foods for him and my kids. I will have the nicest Shabbos table, and I will have as many babies as I can. God, you have enough boys, you do not need me to be a boy. I promise, if I wake up as a girl, I will make up for it by having many boys, who will be the most studied and pious boys. I want to give birth to girls when I am older, but if you listen to me now, I am ready to make an exchange: Let me be a girl, and I will be happy to have a big family with just boys. Oh God, help me!
Podobně bolavých pasáží je v knize několik. Drtivá většina jich ale spojená zejména s dětstvím. Autorka totiž pojala svou autobiografii hlavně jako prostor pro zakonzervování dětských vzpomínek a deníkové smíření s vlastní rodinou, ze které si chce pamatovat všechnu lásku a péči. Na dilemata rané dospělosti spojená s ochodem a tranzicí se téměř nedostane. Nemyslím přitom, že bych vyčítal knize něco, co neslibuje. Abby svůj odchod teasuje od úplného začátku, často odkazuje k něčemu dospělému, „k čemu se ještě dostaneme“ a na konci kapitol se rozhodně nebojí používat clifhangery.
Její mládí sledujeme po dobrých osmdesát procent knihy. Několikrát se dozvíme, že byla výjimečnou studentkou, zároveň však – a to hlavně – rebelkou, která nakonec zakotvila až na třetí škole. Její rebelství bylo různé. Od obzvláště bystrého zpochybňování základů víry a komunity, přes čtení zakázaných knih po vynález speciálních papírových bomb, které po namočení v kávovém roztoku údajně smrdí jako hovno a zanechávají stopy příslušného odstínu.
Výklad je většinu času chronologický, hojně prokládaný historkami a fakty ze života komunity, rodiny a těžko zpracovatelným stopováním rodokmenů. Stein dává vskutku zakusit, jak důležitá je například zmíněná klanovost, když si tahle teta vzala bratra tohoto člověka – a to znamená tohle. Podrobné vykreslování vlastního života a okolí končí zhruba v čase svatby. Tedy v jejích osmnácti letech, kdy v ní začíná dozrávat rozhodnutí o tom, že se něco musí stát, neboť ani hyper-pilné studium, ani víra v Boha neumenšují její pocit genderové dysforie.
Biografický film v tu chvíli ale už máme za sebou. Běží pouze titulky telegraficky shrnující další život hlavní hrdinky. Dokončení rabínských studií. Narození syna. Seznámení s internetem. Vygooglení organizace pomáhající odchodu z chasidské komunity. Nešťastné sezení s nechápajícím otcem a progresivním rabínem. Poděkování organizaci. Vyautování na sociálních sítích, po kterém přichází vlna reakcí a žádostí o rozhovory.
Budiž. Přesto mně přišlo čtenářsky líto, že poslední zmíněná událost dostane víc prostoru než drobnička o tom, že po vyutování s ní přestalo deset z dvanácti sourozenců komunikovat. Stejně tak její otec s matkou, se kterýma měla velmi silný vztah. Taky nevíme, jak to celé dopadlo na manželku a syna. Nepochybuju o tom, že veřejná podpora znamenala pro mě nepředstavitelné přitakání po letech úmorných pochyb. Právě pro onu nepředstavitelnost by mě ale zajímalo, jak se s veřejným zájmem vyrovnávala. Stejně tak s odsouzením rodinou na straně druhé. Stejně jako trochu kritické posouzení většinové společnosti prizmatem hodnot, které v ní musely do jisté míry zůstat. Stein však nabídne pouze víceméně bezproblémový happy-end s jímavou hudbou.
Pak je tady ještě jedna věc. Kniha je literárně docela slabá. Největší řemeslný problém nacházím v následující pasáži, kterou uvozuje jeden z učitelů. “When the Stein student is engaged, the whole study hall can be in flames and it wouldn’t faze him. But when Stein isn’t in the mood, there is nothing you can do.” A Abby Stein dodává: „I think it’s one of the best descriptions of my character I have ever heard“.
Ale takhle přece psaní nefunguje. Anglicky píšící mají klasickou editorskou hlášku Show, don't tell. Tohle řeknou, když mladý journo vykopne reportáž slovy shrnujícím „úřady se přehazují problém jako horký brambor“, místo aby popisoval, kdo brambor hází, jak letí, jak je horký, zkrátka akci. Přesně tohle většinu času Abby Stein dělá.
Dozvíme se hodně o tom, jaká je podle sebe samé, konkrétních manifestací umožňujících čtenáři udělat si vlastní výklad jejího charakteru ale o dost méně. Dostaneme skripta o životě chasidské komunity a rodiny, vlastní prokreslené prožívání nabídne Stein spíše sporadicky. Mě by přitom velmi zajímalo, jak ji konkrétně ovlivnilo studium kabaly, po jejímž objevení se označuje za velmi mystického člověka. Čtenáře ovšem zpraví pouze o nalezení pasáže pojednávající o možném nesouladu duše a těla v otázce genderu. Ta je pro její život zásadní, proto na ni odkáže vícekrát.
Nad rámec zmínky o pasáži ale pouze dodá, že byla chvílema až omámená mysticismem.
Ona přitom umí udělat atmosféru. Když popisuje své sblížení s chlapcem na internátě, svou první láskou, s níž prožije své první erotické zkušenosti, její psaní je plné života.
To je ale výjimka. Většinu času jde ale o blogový příspěvek z ranku osobní esej, jejichž čas vypršel v roce 2017. Konec je pak jako z Ted Talku. Všechno dobře dopadlo, prosím, všichni si zatleskejme.
Magazín Prospect autorku označil za jednu z padesáti nejvlivnějších myslitelek a myslitelů roku 2020. Snad jednou. Zatím o své výjimečném myšlení pouze mluví.
September 16, 2023
Fantastic fantastic fantastic. She’s such a good writer and storyteller and it’s such a crazy STORY itself. Shana tova and Shabbat shalom besties
March 12, 2021
I am truly fascinated by the courage of Abby. I wanted to hear more about her story of liberation and freedom as she finally became the woman she always knew she was. Unfortunately her story missed the mark for me. I wanted more! I wanted her to share her feelings of that first day she stepped out as Abby. I wanted to hear more about her experiences with her family as a woman transitioning.
November 28, 2019
Amazing, amazing book. I love her writing style. It's like catching up with an old friend over coffee. A casual and accessible treatment of what must have been such a difficult childhood. I'm really grateful to have found a Jewish community that is not just accepting of, but also celebrates trans Jews, including having a trans rabbi. So it's important to be reminded that, unfortunately, this is not a universal attitude and that trans Jews elsewhere need help being accepted.
I think the most fascinating parts of the book were how Stein found opportunities for gender rebellion and expression within a Hasidic context. But I also appreciated the inside look into Hasidic daily life. I enjoyed learning all of the interpretations of law and minchagim I wasn't aware of before - little things like Hasidic men going to the mikveh every morning.
I am so grateful that Stein wrote about her experiences and look forward to seeing what comes next for her!
I think the most fascinating parts of the book were how Stein found opportunities for gender rebellion and expression within a Hasidic context. But I also appreciated the inside look into Hasidic daily life. I enjoyed learning all of the interpretations of law and minchagim I wasn't aware of before - little things like Hasidic men going to the mikveh every morning.
I am so grateful that Stein wrote about her experiences and look forward to seeing what comes next for her!
December 4, 2019
Continuing my theme of reading about people leaving Orthodox Judaism this year, Becoming Eve might be my favorite of them all.
The only disappointing part is that the portion of the book discussing Abby's actual transition is very brief. I understand that this is a story in progress so to speak but we go from Abby's son's bris being the tipping point to jumping ahead a good four years. I'd like to hear more about her decision to leave and how she did that. Then again, that was the content of most of the other books of this type that I read this year were specifically about the individuals deciding to break free of Hasidic Judaism.
The only disappointing part is that the portion of the book discussing Abby's actual transition is very brief. I understand that this is a story in progress so to speak but we go from Abby's son's bris being the tipping point to jumping ahead a good four years. I'd like to hear more about her decision to leave and how she did that. Then again, that was the content of most of the other books of this type that I read this year were specifically about the individuals deciding to break free of Hasidic Judaism.
Read
January 18, 2020I seem to be on something of a memoir kick. This is another one that I'd been hearing/reading about a lot: on lists, podcasts, etc., and it's another one that makes me admire a courageous writer. Near the end of the book, Stein writes that her story "is still happening"; the text's final sentence is "To be continued!" I'll look forward to reading the sequel.
December 19, 2019
deserves a 4.5
it is a true story about a first born son born into a Rabbinical family - born to be a rabbi
from a young age she feels she is a girl
this is her journey from getting out of an ultra orthodox family and becoming the girl she was meant to be.....
it is a true story about a first born son born into a Rabbinical family - born to be a rabbi
from a young age she feels she is a girl
this is her journey from getting out of an ultra orthodox family and becoming the girl she was meant to be.....
December 19, 2019
Very interesting.
Learned a lot of the history and customs of the Hasidic Jewish community.
Written with great detail and hopefully with honesty it is the story of a woman’s decision that will forever change her life.
Learned a lot of the history and customs of the Hasidic Jewish community.
Written with great detail and hopefully with honesty it is the story of a woman’s decision that will forever change her life.
April 9, 2020
Quite possibly, one of the very best books I have ever read! A gripping story that spans a lifetime of uncertainty, until Abby was able to break free from the Hassidic community and become herself.
November 21, 2023
Wish I could rate half-stars. This is more of a 3.5, I think.
Becoming Eve details Abby Stein's Hasidic childhood as she wrestles with the unwavering belief that she is a girl born in a boy's body. It is a challenging set of circumstances on its own, made all the harder by the strict gender segregation inherent to Hasidic Judaism.
This was my first time reading a memoir of an ex-ultra-Orthodox Jew, and also my first for a transgender person. I know several people in both categories (independently), so the material isn't quite foreign to me.
It's interesting to ponder Stein's relationship with Hasidic Judaism. She begins to doubt her faith because she feels so certain she is a girl, and she cannot reconcile this fact with the world around her. If she cannot reconcile this fact with the world around her, then perhaps nothing around her can be trusted at all. In a sense, it plants the seed for Stein's disbelief, and things simply unspool from there.
An interesting question to ponder--one that Stein unfortunately never explores--is whether Stein would have left her faith if she had not been transgender. It's a difficult question to answer, and maybe that's why she didn't, but I think it is too interesting to leave alone. Part of me thinks, yes, she would have left anyway. "Ask questions, but only the right ones," someone who left ultra-Orthodoxy once told me of his upbringing. Stein definitely had this problem, independent of her gender identity--she wanted to learn, to question, to understand. "It just is" or "this is how it is done" wasn't a good enough answer for her. I do not think this inquisitive, contrarian quality lends itself well to the breed of Judaism in which Stein was raised.
I related to Stein's childhood a lot. I am not transgender or Jewish, but I share her "but why?" questioning trait and disdain for "because we've always done it this way" systems. I drove adults in my life crazy as a kid, because I refused to do what was expected of me if I thought it was pointless or unfair. I wasn't a malicious rule breaker, but I would argue and stand my ground, cost to me be damned. It made me think how I would fared in Hasidic society, and I think the answer is: not well. This isn't a criticism of Hasidic society, to be clear. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered in," the Japanese say. Highly structured, collectivist societies work well for the majority of people; the unlucky remainder stick out like sore thumbs. I feel for Stein. I understand why she lost her faith.
Of course, on the other hand, someone can be a contrarian, unhappy disbeliever who remains in their community anyway. It's all they know. It's impossibly hard to think of leaving. Where will you go? What will you do for work? How do you function in the utterly foreign society that surrounds your enclave? I have to imagine there are many covert disbelievers who remain, who simply lack a forcing factor to go off the derecht. Stein had that forcing factor. It wasn't that leaving the community was easy (presumably--Stein barely talks about it); it was because the status quo felt untenable.
Stein searched fervently for answers everywhere, and eventually found a line in the Kabbalah that gave a rhyme and reason to her gendered existence. I understood her "aha!" moment immediately. I would have done and thought the exact same thing in her shoes. In a religious world where everything is so prescribed and God knows best, being unlike anyone else of course has to beg the question: there must be an answer somewhere.
All throughout, though, Stein never directly attacks the Hasidic world, even as it fails her. She does not criticize or judge people who remain. It simply wasn't a world that appeared to work for her. Nor does she blame her parents. It is evidently throughout the book just how fiercely her parents, especially her father, loved her, and I think Stein appreciates they are good people who only want the best for Stein. They were willing to tolerate her leaving the community, but her gender transition was simply a step too far, and they cut her off. Despite how deeply painful this is to Stein, she never once judges or criticizes her parents, because their idea of wanting the best is simply different than what Stein needs. It is just a heart-wrenching situation for all involved.
With all this said, I am not sure this is the best-written book, for a few reasons.
The biggest issue with this book is that it feels woefully incomplete. Much of the book focuses on the first fifteen years of Stein's life while she grapples with her feelings she is a girl... and then the book races through her marriage, her decision to leave the community, her decision to transition, the process of her transitioning, everything. To me, these are the most interesting and complex parts! Ironically, it makes her departure from Judaism and a transition to a woman seem almost instantaneous, when it obviously wasn't at all. I can't figure out why Stein decided to do this. The slow, powerful build-up describing her childhood is rudely snuffed with the most underwhelming end of any book I've read other than Riding in the Car with Boys.
I guess it's not that surprising Stein fails to resolve the weighty dilemma of her life with a satisfying, fleshed out conclusion; she does this in smaller ways throughout the memoir. For instance, she describes falling deeply in love with Chesky and their sexual consummation, but then only mentions Chesky once again, that he is getting married. What was it like to have him get married? How did that affect Stein? Does Stein ever think about him after? Did they cut off contact? Was the drifting apart messy? She never says. There are several such instances where I wondered, what became of that relationship or situation?
Compounding pacing matters, Stein often introduces events out of order, making the timeline confusing. Doing this sometimes removed the emotional punch from events. I think the concept of how to have sex must have been introduced in three or four different parts of the book, all adjacent to one another, but completely out of order. Same for getting married.
Aside from pacing and plot problems, the book is not exactly the pinnacle of prose. "I did this, then Y person said that, and I did Y in response." The book could have benefitted in two areas: 1) more contextual information on Hasidic Judaism weaved in, and 2) more introspection.
Firstly, as noted, I think the book just assumes you are familiar with Hasidic Judaism. It does very little to immerse you in that world or give the reader any background knowledge. I have to imagine a lot of the gravity and significance of what Stein describes is simply lost on the average naive reader. I do not think, for instance, most Americans realize just how aggressively insular the Hasidic community is; I certainly did not know until recently. I felt like I filled in the gaps on events and concepts from my own knowledge a lot, and there were surely other nuances I couldn't appreciate.
Secondly, this book really needed some good honest, good introspection. You learn a lot about the sequential events of Stein's life, sure. But Stein never stops to consider things like, would she have left the community if she were born a girl? What did religion really mean to her? How does she interpret her parents' behavior towards her, growing up and after? Why did the adults in her life behave the way they did towards her? Why did she like Gibbers more than the other yeshivas she had attended? She stopped misbehaving there--why? What light switch flipped? If I had had Stein's experience, I feel like I would have had so much more to write.
I liked the book and it was an engaging enough read, but I am left wanting something more that the book simply did not offer.
Becoming Eve details Abby Stein's Hasidic childhood as she wrestles with the unwavering belief that she is a girl born in a boy's body. It is a challenging set of circumstances on its own, made all the harder by the strict gender segregation inherent to Hasidic Judaism.
This was my first time reading a memoir of an ex-ultra-Orthodox Jew, and also my first for a transgender person. I know several people in both categories (independently), so the material isn't quite foreign to me.
It's interesting to ponder Stein's relationship with Hasidic Judaism. She begins to doubt her faith because she feels so certain she is a girl, and she cannot reconcile this fact with the world around her. If she cannot reconcile this fact with the world around her, then perhaps nothing around her can be trusted at all. In a sense, it plants the seed for Stein's disbelief, and things simply unspool from there.
An interesting question to ponder--one that Stein unfortunately never explores--is whether Stein would have left her faith if she had not been transgender. It's a difficult question to answer, and maybe that's why she didn't, but I think it is too interesting to leave alone. Part of me thinks, yes, she would have left anyway. "Ask questions, but only the right ones," someone who left ultra-Orthodoxy once told me of his upbringing. Stein definitely had this problem, independent of her gender identity--she wanted to learn, to question, to understand. "It just is" or "this is how it is done" wasn't a good enough answer for her. I do not think this inquisitive, contrarian quality lends itself well to the breed of Judaism in which Stein was raised.
I related to Stein's childhood a lot. I am not transgender or Jewish, but I share her "but why?" questioning trait and disdain for "because we've always done it this way" systems. I drove adults in my life crazy as a kid, because I refused to do what was expected of me if I thought it was pointless or unfair. I wasn't a malicious rule breaker, but I would argue and stand my ground, cost to me be damned. It made me think how I would fared in Hasidic society, and I think the answer is: not well. This isn't a criticism of Hasidic society, to be clear. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered in," the Japanese say. Highly structured, collectivist societies work well for the majority of people; the unlucky remainder stick out like sore thumbs. I feel for Stein. I understand why she lost her faith.
Of course, on the other hand, someone can be a contrarian, unhappy disbeliever who remains in their community anyway. It's all they know. It's impossibly hard to think of leaving. Where will you go? What will you do for work? How do you function in the utterly foreign society that surrounds your enclave? I have to imagine there are many covert disbelievers who remain, who simply lack a forcing factor to go off the derecht. Stein had that forcing factor. It wasn't that leaving the community was easy (presumably--Stein barely talks about it); it was because the status quo felt untenable.
Stein searched fervently for answers everywhere, and eventually found a line in the Kabbalah that gave a rhyme and reason to her gendered existence. I understood her "aha!" moment immediately. I would have done and thought the exact same thing in her shoes. In a religious world where everything is so prescribed and God knows best, being unlike anyone else of course has to beg the question: there must be an answer somewhere.
All throughout, though, Stein never directly attacks the Hasidic world, even as it fails her. She does not criticize or judge people who remain. It simply wasn't a world that appeared to work for her. Nor does she blame her parents. It is evidently throughout the book just how fiercely her parents, especially her father, loved her, and I think Stein appreciates they are good people who only want the best for Stein. They were willing to tolerate her leaving the community, but her gender transition was simply a step too far, and they cut her off. Despite how deeply painful this is to Stein, she never once judges or criticizes her parents, because their idea of wanting the best is simply different than what Stein needs. It is just a heart-wrenching situation for all involved.
With all this said, I am not sure this is the best-written book, for a few reasons.
The biggest issue with this book is that it feels woefully incomplete. Much of the book focuses on the first fifteen years of Stein's life while she grapples with her feelings she is a girl... and then the book races through her marriage, her decision to leave the community, her decision to transition, the process of her transitioning, everything. To me, these are the most interesting and complex parts! Ironically, it makes her departure from Judaism and a transition to a woman seem almost instantaneous, when it obviously wasn't at all. I can't figure out why Stein decided to do this. The slow, powerful build-up describing her childhood is rudely snuffed with the most underwhelming end of any book I've read other than Riding in the Car with Boys.
I guess it's not that surprising Stein fails to resolve the weighty dilemma of her life with a satisfying, fleshed out conclusion; she does this in smaller ways throughout the memoir. For instance, she describes falling deeply in love with Chesky and their sexual consummation, but then only mentions Chesky once again, that he is getting married. What was it like to have him get married? How did that affect Stein? Does Stein ever think about him after? Did they cut off contact? Was the drifting apart messy? She never says. There are several such instances where I wondered, what became of that relationship or situation?
Compounding pacing matters, Stein often introduces events out of order, making the timeline confusing. Doing this sometimes removed the emotional punch from events. I think the concept of how to have sex must have been introduced in three or four different parts of the book, all adjacent to one another, but completely out of order. Same for getting married.
Aside from pacing and plot problems, the book is not exactly the pinnacle of prose. "I did this, then Y person said that, and I did Y in response." The book could have benefitted in two areas: 1) more contextual information on Hasidic Judaism weaved in, and 2) more introspection.
Firstly, as noted, I think the book just assumes you are familiar with Hasidic Judaism. It does very little to immerse you in that world or give the reader any background knowledge. I have to imagine a lot of the gravity and significance of what Stein describes is simply lost on the average naive reader. I do not think, for instance, most Americans realize just how aggressively insular the Hasidic community is; I certainly did not know until recently. I felt like I filled in the gaps on events and concepts from my own knowledge a lot, and there were surely other nuances I couldn't appreciate.
Secondly, this book really needed some good honest, good introspection. You learn a lot about the sequential events of Stein's life, sure. But Stein never stops to consider things like, would she have left the community if she were born a girl? What did religion really mean to her? How does she interpret her parents' behavior towards her, growing up and after? Why did the adults in her life behave the way they did towards her? Why did she like Gibbers more than the other yeshivas she had attended? She stopped misbehaving there--why? What light switch flipped? If I had had Stein's experience, I feel like I would have had so much more to write.
I liked the book and it was an engaging enough read, but I am left wanting something more that the book simply did not offer.
January 26, 2020
The first of it's kind, Abby Stein recounts her experience having been born as an heir to a long dynasty of ultra-orthodox Hasidic rabbis descended directly from the Bal Shem Tov virtually eliminated any understanding or compassion from her parents for Stein’s personal identity struggles.
Abby Chava Stein was born Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel in 1991 in Brooklyn, New York. Stein was one of 13 children. It captures her story of growing up an not fitting in, not thinking like her brothers, wanting to be more feminine like her sisters, and struggling to find a place in Yeshiva. She rebelled just so that she could express her own feelings and individuality in a community that had no place for it, despite it being within one of the most modern, liberal and diverse cities in the world, she was trapped by her insular society and cultural norms that honoured traditions dating back to 18th century way of life in the old country.
I found that the irony of the fact that had Abby been born into a Jewish family only a few blocks over from where she lived, this story may not have been so remarkable. But the juxtaposition of her, as the Kabbalah explained, the feminine soul was re-incarnated into a boys body in a Hasidic American shtetl. Her attempts to rebel were allowed and even encouraged by her father because she was doing what higher thinkers and really what Jewish Rabbinic studies teach them is to ask questions, and push back, critique the scripture and the interpretations of the Torah.
All around her, in her home, in school was strict code of rules and conduct highly gender-specific, yet her questions and lack of faith were encouraged by those around her that saw it not as rebellious but the highest order of an inquisitive mind, was to question everything, seek the truth and try and find answers.
Even though her first language of Yiddish kept her in the dark, as the feelings that she felt for others did not have a vocabulary in her language. She kept pushing and pushing to learn more and more, by learning to read in Hebrew and exploring every text that she could find to give a possible explanation.
In doing so, her Yeshiva and Talmudic teachers allowed her to start to learn Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism, which is traditionally reserved for elder men after they are married. Abby found rational explanations (at least to her within the context of her upbringing) why she had feelings for men, and how to explain them to her family.
This book answered many of my own questions about how Judaism has survived for so long and how people within it have thrived despite rigid rules for society and oppression for those around them. There seems to be a permissiveness that the book touches on, that it is ok to rebel, to ask questions, to seek answers from others, to get another (Rabbi's) opinion. This is all very much encouraged in their culture.
Ultimately, it was a struggle, but one that I think Abby did in the most honoured way which gave her strength and encouraged her to push forward to find answers without badmouthing where she came from.
Notable highlights:
I loved all the Yiddish vocabulary I learned from this book as well as the religious family org chart it paints of the Rebbes as descendants of the Baal Shem Tov. This text explores both modern-day themes of diversity (not inclusion) but in search for an explanation of what was going on with herself, Abby navigated her culture and religion from within its structure and essentially became and an expert on Hasidim that she explained very well in the book.
Having grown up myself in a modern conservadox family and having visited some of the communities that Abby is from, Williamsburg, NY, The Catskills religious summer camps, I myself recognized the scenes that she described. There was a lot of familiarity to me of the traditions she described but with much more context and from an entirely different perspective, like the whole Mikveh ritual.
Interesting things I learned or Takeaways:
What I liked most about this book was that I felt it was really neutral in terms of not being too judgmental and cast blame on her upbringing or experience. It never felt like she was oppressed and pained. It was really factual and painted a clear picture of what I imagine many homosexual people probably feel inside their heads from such a young age in trying to rationalize their thoughts with their environment and cultural norms. Abby never had the experience of knowing about what those feelings were, they did not have a label attached to them, she was merely exploring by reading and learning and questioning deep into the resources she had to help her feel that she belonged and so she could explain it to others.
What I also liked was that she did find explanations and answers within the confines of the strict culture that she lived, in the Kabbalah, which is a perfectly acceptable place and rationalization for her feelings that would allow her to connect with her family again. I love that Judaism has all the answers, even if it isn't a regular way of life for her community, she still found a tribe who accepted her outside of her family, but still within her city.
Maybe this is why there are literally 12 tribes of Israel, many different versions of Judaism are played out all over the world, some more closely aligned to Hasidim that others, but all still call themselves Jews. It is that enduring rigidity and flexibility that has allowed us to survive all those years and kept us stuck together. We find each other no matter where we go and this book gave hope and a path for anyone who may think that they don't belong in their community. If they are Jewish there will always be another group of Jews that will accept you.
What do I want to read next?
Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss
Abby Chava Stein was born Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel in 1991 in Brooklyn, New York. Stein was one of 13 children. It captures her story of growing up an not fitting in, not thinking like her brothers, wanting to be more feminine like her sisters, and struggling to find a place in Yeshiva. She rebelled just so that she could express her own feelings and individuality in a community that had no place for it, despite it being within one of the most modern, liberal and diverse cities in the world, she was trapped by her insular society and cultural norms that honoured traditions dating back to 18th century way of life in the old country.
I found that the irony of the fact that had Abby been born into a Jewish family only a few blocks over from where she lived, this story may not have been so remarkable. But the juxtaposition of her, as the Kabbalah explained, the feminine soul was re-incarnated into a boys body in a Hasidic American shtetl. Her attempts to rebel were allowed and even encouraged by her father because she was doing what higher thinkers and really what Jewish Rabbinic studies teach them is to ask questions, and push back, critique the scripture and the interpretations of the Torah.
All around her, in her home, in school was strict code of rules and conduct highly gender-specific, yet her questions and lack of faith were encouraged by those around her that saw it not as rebellious but the highest order of an inquisitive mind, was to question everything, seek the truth and try and find answers.
Even though her first language of Yiddish kept her in the dark, as the feelings that she felt for others did not have a vocabulary in her language. She kept pushing and pushing to learn more and more, by learning to read in Hebrew and exploring every text that she could find to give a possible explanation.
In doing so, her Yeshiva and Talmudic teachers allowed her to start to learn Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism, which is traditionally reserved for elder men after they are married. Abby found rational explanations (at least to her within the context of her upbringing) why she had feelings for men, and how to explain them to her family.
This book answered many of my own questions about how Judaism has survived for so long and how people within it have thrived despite rigid rules for society and oppression for those around them. There seems to be a permissiveness that the book touches on, that it is ok to rebel, to ask questions, to seek answers from others, to get another (Rabbi's) opinion. This is all very much encouraged in their culture.
Ultimately, it was a struggle, but one that I think Abby did in the most honoured way which gave her strength and encouraged her to push forward to find answers without badmouthing where she came from.
Notable highlights:
I loved all the Yiddish vocabulary I learned from this book as well as the religious family org chart it paints of the Rebbes as descendants of the Baal Shem Tov. This text explores both modern-day themes of diversity (not inclusion) but in search for an explanation of what was going on with herself, Abby navigated her culture and religion from within its structure and essentially became and an expert on Hasidim that she explained very well in the book.
Having grown up myself in a modern conservadox family and having visited some of the communities that Abby is from, Williamsburg, NY, The Catskills religious summer camps, I myself recognized the scenes that she described. There was a lot of familiarity to me of the traditions she described but with much more context and from an entirely different perspective, like the whole Mikveh ritual.
Interesting things I learned or Takeaways:
What I liked most about this book was that I felt it was really neutral in terms of not being too judgmental and cast blame on her upbringing or experience. It never felt like she was oppressed and pained. It was really factual and painted a clear picture of what I imagine many homosexual people probably feel inside their heads from such a young age in trying to rationalize their thoughts with their environment and cultural norms. Abby never had the experience of knowing about what those feelings were, they did not have a label attached to them, she was merely exploring by reading and learning and questioning deep into the resources she had to help her feel that she belonged and so she could explain it to others.
What I also liked was that she did find explanations and answers within the confines of the strict culture that she lived, in the Kabbalah, which is a perfectly acceptable place and rationalization for her feelings that would allow her to connect with her family again. I love that Judaism has all the answers, even if it isn't a regular way of life for her community, she still found a tribe who accepted her outside of her family, but still within her city.
Maybe this is why there are literally 12 tribes of Israel, many different versions of Judaism are played out all over the world, some more closely aligned to Hasidim that others, but all still call themselves Jews. It is that enduring rigidity and flexibility that has allowed us to survive all those years and kept us stuck together. We find each other no matter where we go and this book gave hope and a path for anyone who may think that they don't belong in their community. If they are Jewish there will always be another group of Jews that will accept you.
What do I want to read next?
Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss
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February 8, 2024Abby Stein's memoir takes place during her childhood and the main focus is about the demands imposed on her as the firstborn son of a prominent orthodox family and how that had a huge impact on her dysphoria--Stein has always known she was a girl/woman. To be honest, I was hoping for a larger focus on the moment(s) Stein walks out on the life she was expected to live--as a ultra-orthodox rabbi--to live as her true self. And I'm sure there are valid reasons she mostly glosses over this moment and she certainly doesn't owe us all the details, but that was my expectation going in, so I was disappointed. I still think it's worth a read for someone like me, who's fascinated by the way queer people navigate religion and the expectations it imposes on them (myself included).
February 23, 2024
Such a beautiful memoir about growing up Hasidic and the journey of religious seeking, gender transition/affirmation, and finding family and community after being shunned by those closest. Most of the book is about Abby’s life in Williamsburg and Monsey, in yeshiva, and being raised to become a rabbi in a “royal” Hasidic family. The last chapters describe her process of leaving the community and finding support. Abby writes with care and tenderness about her family who have shunned her and the grief of such loss. This is a book I will read again.
May 29, 2025
Yeah, so this book was incredible. I sobbed outside the train station when I finished it. Three people tried to approach and comfort me. I did not engage.
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