Constructing a Transgender Version of Jewish Tradition: Joy Ladin’s The Soul of the Stranger

Abstract

In 2019, Joy Ladin published The Soul of the Stranger, a book that offers a transgender critical reading of the Torah along with Ladin’s personal reflections as a transgender member of a Jewish community with a background in Torah observance. This essay offers an analysis of The Soul of the Stranger, arguing that Ladin constructs a transgender Jewish tradition in the text. Ladin disavows the ostensible incompatibility of trans and Jewish experiences by showing how her reading of Genesis and Jonah accords with rather than departs from traditional rabbinic approaches to Jewish texts in two key ways: by reinterpreting apparent binaries in the creation narratives and by explaining biblical figures’ trans-related experiences. Ladin’s reimagining of foundational Jewish texts forecloses transphobic Torah interpretations by refusing to allow potential detractors to set the terms of the conversation. By appealing to Jewish tradition and, thereby, simultaneously constituting it, Ladin imagines and creates a trans-inclusive Judaism framed on its own terms rather than in opposition to voices of exclusion.