Becoming Eve

Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without access to TV or the internet and never taught English, 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 into mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family and her way of life.

"Becoming Eve is a powerful, moving story of grappling with both gender and faith. Abby Chava Stein is a compelling storyteller who shows us how to follow the voice within--even when everyone and everything around us is telling us not to."--DANYA RUTTENBERG, author of Surprised By God and Nurture the Wow , "Becoming Eve is a beautiful, haunting story of self-discovery. Her longing for truth, acceptance, and love will echo in the heart of every reader."--LEAH VINCENT, author of Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood, "Becoming Eve is a powerful, heartfelt account of the often fraught journey toward one's true self. In sharing her story, Abby Chava Stein lights the path for all of us who are embarking on journeys of our own."--TOVA MIRVIS, bestselling author of The Book of Separation, The Ladies Auxiliary, and The Outside World, "Becoming Eve is a vivid journey through Abby Stein's formative years in the Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community as she struggles to find a more inclusive expression of her faith and learns to embrace her identity as a woman of trans experience."--SARAH VALENTINE, author of When I Was White, "'No agenda, just my story, ' Abby Stein writes in the prologue to her fascinating memoir. And yet, her book delivers on a very definite agenda: helping us empathize with experiences radically different from our own. With humor and grace-and impressive erudition of Jewish mysticism-Abby Stein grants us entry into a singular, otherworldly capsule: the byzantine world of Hasidic 'royal' families and the Sisyphean pursuit of living an authentic life within it.--SHULEM DEEN, author of All Who Go Do Not Return, winner of the Prix Médicis and the National Jewish Book Award

Abby Chava Stein is the tenth-generation descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement. In 2015, Stein came out as a woman and she now works as a trans activist. In 2019, she served on the steering committee for the Women's March in Washington, DC and she was named by the Jewish Week as one of the "36 Under 36" young Jews who are effecting change in the world. She lives in New York City.