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. He is also a core faculty member at SVARA: A traditionally radical yeshiva.

Elliot’s essays have been featured in Time Magazine, Teen Vogue, British Vogue, Them, The LA Times, The New York Times, and many other places. His essays are included in numerous anthologies and university syllabi, and have been translated into Spanish, Korean, French and Japanese. His activism is frequently featured in the media. 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. His prayers for new moments are used by communities around the world.

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