Abby Stein will speak at a virtual event hosted by Temple Sinai.

Submitted

Abby Stein, a transgender rabbi and best-selling author, will speak at a virtual event sponsored by Temple Sinai of Newington on Wednesday, March 24, at 6 p.m. The event is part of the temple’s focus on gender equity during the month of March.

“Stand Up for Gender Equity” is the topic of the talk by Rabbi Stein, a transgender activist, blogger, model and author of the best-selling memoir, Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman.

The event is open to the public free of charge. For information on how to access the virtual event, please contact the temple at [email protected]

Raised in a Hasidic community, she is the first openly transgender woman to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution. She was ordained as a rabbi in 2011, before coming out as transgender in 2015. She founded the first nationwide support group for trans people of Orthodox Jewish background.

Rabbi Stein is a direct descendant of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, who is regarded as founding Hasidic Judaism in the 18th century. She grew up in a Hasidic family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, speaking Yiddish and Hebrew, and was educated at a traditional all-boys Jewish school.

She has been featured in major media including the New York Times, New York Post, New York Magazine, NBC, CNN and Fox News.

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