Abby Stein

During the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Stein is serving as a national Surrogate for the Bernie Sanders campaign.

In 2020 Stein was a featured speaker at the Women's March NYC, in Foley Square.

I wanted to show that if you claim being trans is unacceptable in traditional Judaism, well, here is a community that is not just okay with accepting me as I am, but is celebrating with me, rejoicing with me. What I’m hoping is that by sharing my story, others in the same situation will realize that you can have your name changed in a synagogue. There are so many synagogues where you can’t, but there are also those where you can—the Jewish Reform movement, the Conservative movement. Within Orthodoxy, there’s still a long way to go. Every time something like this is done, it’s one step closer to acceptance for everyone.

Stein's first book, "Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman", a memoir, was published by Seal Press (Hachette) on November 12, 2019. ISBN 9781580059169.

In early 2019 Stein joined the Women's March leadership, as a member of the 2019 Steering Committee. Despite some controversy surrounding the March and its leadership, Stein said that “I’m convinced that working with Women’s March people, we can gain so much more by working together even when there might be some parts we feel uncomfortable with,” and "expressed solidarity with other Jewish women who are supporting the march on grounds that it has emerged as an important and growing coalition of marginalized groups including Jews, African Americans, Hispanics, and LGBT people."

American Jewish Press Association Rockower Award, First Place Award for Excellence in Personality Profiles. In the 2019 awards, Simi Horowitz's profile of Stein "Abby Stein: A Gender Transition Through a Jewish Lens" in the Moment Magazine Received the first place award for Excellence in Personality Profiles. The AJPA commented saying that "This piece captures the humanity of Abby Stein, with an abundance of quietly telling details (like what she's eating during the interview). An impressive work."

Since coming out, Stein has also done several modeling projects depicting her life and transition, which have been published by numerous sites. She told Refinery29 that "I actually liked [shooting], It did help me feel more comfortable," and that she does these projects to encourage others on their journey. In 2018 she also did several photo shoots and modeling projects with major fashion magazines such as Vogue and InStyle.

A big part of Stein's events have been with Hillel International affiliates all over the world. According to a 2017 report by Hillel "Stein has visited more than 100 campuses, sharing her story with thousands of students in hopes of teaching them the importance of inclusivity and that “Judaism and queerness are not a contradiction.” Her events drew hundreds of students, where she talks about her life, Transgender in Judaism, Intersectionality, policy and politics as it relates to the LGBTQ community, and consulting on how to be more inclusive.

Stein was featured in the 2016 Showtime Documentary series, Dark Net, in episode 8, "Revolt".

On June 4, 2016, Stein celebrated her transition and announced her name change to Abby Chava Stein at Romemu, a Jewish Renewal synagogue in the Upper West Side neighborhood of New York City. In an interview with The Huffington Post, she said that even though she did not believe in God, she wanted to celebrate in a synagogue:

In addition to transgender activism, Stein has also been active in several projects to help those going Off the derech and leaving the Ultra-Orthodox community. She has been working with Footsteps, and its Canadian sister organization, Forward, for which she traveled to Montreal in 2016 to help jump start. In addition, she has also done some lay advocacy work with YAFFED working towards a better education in the Hasidic schools, for which she has also engaged in political work.

In addition to public speaking, she also teaches classes on Gender within Judaism, as well as bringing attention to trans people from Orthodox communities. As of November 2016, she has had speeches at several universities. She has also done longer speaking tours to several communities in Montreal; the San Francisco Bay Area; and the New York metropolitan area.

Starting in 2016 Stein has also become a rising star in demand for speaking engagements and conferences, such as the Limmud franchise, where at the 2017 Limmud NY conference, she spoke more times than any other presenter. At the same time she has also spoken internationally at conferences such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's annual Junction Conference in Berlin, and the Miles Nadal JCC's Tikkun in Toronto.

In November 2015 Stein made headlines when she came out on her blog as transgender, and started physical transition. She was featured in some major media outlets, including The New York Times, New York Post, New York Magazine, NBC, Daily Dot, and more. She also appeared on TV, on CNN, Fox News, HuffPost Live, and Vice Canada. She also appeared on several international TV networks, and in numerous international newspapers and magazine in over 20 different languages.

In December 2015 Stein founded a support group for trans people from Orthodox backgrounds. The group's first meeting had 12 people attending, most of them fellow Hassids struggling with their gender identity. Stein's avid blogging also gained her a big following in the Jewish community, and she has become a role model for former ultra-Orthodox Jews – both LGBTQ and not.

Stein's first public appearance was in a promotional video for Footsteps 10th anniversary gala in 2013, where she was interviewed about her experience leaving the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Around the same time, she also did interviews with The Wall Street Journal and the Haaretz about her experience leaving the community and fighting for custody. She also started giving public speeches on these topics.

When Stein left her community in 2012 and came out as an atheist, her parents said that "No matter what happens, no matter how you are, you are still my child." However, when she came out as trans, her father told her that "You should know that this means I might not be able to talk to you ever again." Since then her parents shunned her, and stopped talking with her altogether. She has also received some hate from her former community, though in an interview with Chasing News (a Fox News Short film company) she said that she got less hate than some people would have expected.

Stein is also the first woman, and the first openly transgender woman, to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution, having received her rabbinical degree in 2011, before coming out as transgender. She has not worked as a rabbi since at least 2016.

In 2010 Stein married a woman, Fraidy Horowitz, with whom she also had her son, Duvid. The marriage was an arranged marriage by a matchmaker, and the couple only met for 15 minutes prior to the engagement. As Stein left the community, she divorced her wife. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal right after her divorce she said that "They had a good relationship," and that at the time of the divorce she was able to "obtain a 'normal agreement,' including weekly visits, joint custody, split holidays, joint decision-making on major life events and every second weekend with her son."

Abby Stein (October 1, 1991 ~) is an American transgender author, activist, blogger, model, speaker, and former rabbi. She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community, and is a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder the Baal Shem Tov. In 2015, she founded the first support group nationwide for trans people of Orthodox background.

Stein was born in 1991 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in New York City. She is the 6th child in a family of 13 born to a family of notable Hasidic leaders. She has five elder sisters. Her family is of Polish, Ukrainian/Romanian, Serbian, and Israeli descent, with modern Ukraine being the predominant origin. She grew up speaking Yiddish and Hebrew and was educated at a traditional all boys Jewish Day School. The community in which she grew up was highly segregated by gender, which impacts almost all aspects of daily life. She attended the Viznitz Yeshiva in Kiamesha Lake, Upstate New York for her high school education, also receiving ordination as a rabbi there in 2011. In 2012 she left the Hasidic community (often referred to in Jewish communities as going "off the derech"), and in 2014 she started school at Columbia University's School of General Studies.