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by Leah Vincent (Author)
"Visceral and uplifting." -- The Daily Beast
A raw and electrifying memoir about a young woman's journey from self-destruction to redemption, after cutting ties with her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family For fans of the television series Unorthodox and Shtisel, this brutally honest memoir tells the story of one woman's quest to define herself as an individual. Leah Vincent was born into the Yeshivish community, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. As the daughter of an influential rabbi, she was taught to worship two things: God, and the men who ruled their society.Then, at sixteen, Leah was caught exchanging letters with a boy, violating religious law that forbids contact between members of the opposite sex. Shunned by her family, she was cast out of her home, alone and adrift in New York City, unprepared for the freedoms of secular life and unaccustomed to the power and peril inherent in her own sexuality. Fast-paced, harrowing, mesmerizing, and ultimately triumphant, Leah's story illuminates both the oppressive world of religious fundamentalism and the broader issues facing young women of all backgrounds.
Author Biography
Leah Vincent, who now goes by Jericho Vincent, is the author of Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood and the co-author of Legends of the Talmud, a collection of illustrated children's stories. They have lectured on sexual assault, trauma, and Judaism at colleges, organizations, and synagogues across the country. Their essays have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Cut, the Daily Beast, Mask Magazine, the Forward, and the Rumpus. The first member of their family to go to college, Jericho was a Pforzheimer Fellow at Harvard, where they earned a master's degree in public policy. Named to the Jewish Week's 36 Under 36, they have organized numerous initiatives advocating for reform in the ultra-Orthodox community, including co-producing the nationally-profiled It Gets Besser Project. They live in Brooklyn with their partner and collaborator, Ben Ash Blum.
