How an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man became a transgender activist

To the world, he was Jeffrey Smith, an ultra-Orthodox Jew and spiritual leader teaching the Torah to hundreds of students in Jerusalems Hasidic community. But inside, Smith was keeping a secret.

Since I was 5 years old, I really thought I was a girl, Smith, 63, told The Post in an interview last week from Israel, where she has been living for the past two years as an Orthodox Jewish woman following sex-reassignment surgery.

As a boy growing up in Patchogue, LI, Smith knew early on that something was amiss. But there was no Internet to tell her what being transgender was all about.

Whatever it was, Smith instinctively knew to keep quiet about it.

How does a 5-year-old in 1956 tell his mother hes really a girl? she said.

At Patchogue HS on Long Island, Smith dated women, but relationships were short-lived. I loved being with them, going to movies, but I always felt like I had to do more and it didnt feel right, she said.

Smith later attended George Washington University and, while pursuing a masters degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1974, embraced the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Judaism.

I was drawn to the part about my soul and not about my body so much, said Smith, who was born Jewish but not raised religiously.

She soon took on the outward appearance of orthodoxy flowing beard and dark suits.

Its one thing that I have to look like a guy that was bad enough. But now I have to look like a Hasidic man, she recalled. I felt I traded my soul to get a soul.

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How an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man became a transgender activist