A Film about a Rabbi-Turned-Transgender Theologian Exposes What Happens When Self-Discovery Takes Precedence over Obligations to Others

Set to premier in the U.S. in January, the Israeli film I Was Not Born a Mistake tells the story of Yiscah (né Jeffrey, formerly Yaakov) Smith, from secular American Jew to Chabad rabbi to secular gay man to a transsexual, religiously observant teacher of Judaism. Smith, drawing on various bits of kabbalah and ḥasidic thought, has even created a Jewish transgender theology, which, Sarah Rindner writes, is “not . . . much different from what many self-styled self-help gurus offer spiritually hungry audiences.” But, to Rindner, the “emptiness” of this theology is not “the most urgent question the film raises.”