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A review by rbruehlman
Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by Abby Chava Stein
3.0
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.