About Elliot

Elliot Kukla is a rabbi, author, chaplain, and activist.

He has been tending to grief, dying, and becoming (more) disabled since 2007, and has been engaged in justice work since 1996. His practice of radical spiritual care brings together these two streams of expertise with his lived experience of being a trans, non-binary, disabled, Diasporist Jew.

Elliot currently offers individual and group spiritual care for grief and loss, in addition to speaking and writing for international audiences about the intersections of justice and care. He is the founder and co-director of the Collective Loss and Adaptation Project (CLAP), which honors the disenfranchised and suffocated grief of disabled people. From 2008-2021 he was one of the rabbis of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center where he directed a multiple award winning volunteer spiritual care hospice program.

Elliot’s essays have been featured in Time Magazine, Teen Vogue, British Vogue, Them, The LA Times, Truth Out and regularly in the The New York Times. His first non-fiction book THE HEART LIVES BY BREAKING: Finding the courage to mourn in a world that denies your grief is forthcoming in Fall 2027 from Schocken (Knopf Doubleday). His first children’s book THE LAZY DAY is forthcoming in Fall 2026 from Abrams.

Elliot’s essays have been translated into Spanish, Korean, French and Japanese. His activism is frequently featured in the media. His prayers for new moments are used by communities around the world.In 2022, he was even a New Yorker crossword clue (April 12, 7 across).

In 2006, Elliot was the first openly transgender rabbi to be ordained by a seminary in Judaism (Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles). In 2007, Elliot trained in chaplaincy at UCSF Medical Center.

Elliot lives with his partner, kid, queer chosen family, a Boston Terrier, a cat named Turkey, and over a hundred house plants.