The Monmouth County Library Headquarters will host a discussion by author Leah Vincent on May 4.
Vincent will speak about her memoir, “Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood.” The talk will begin at 2 p.m. at Library Headquarters, 125 Symmes Drive, Manalapan.
According to a press release, Vincent was born into the Yeshivish community, a fundamentalist sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. As the daughter of an influential rabbi, Vincent and her 10 siblings were raised to worship two things: God and the men who ruled their world.
But the tradition-bound future Vincent envisioned for herself was cut short when, at 16, she was caught exchanging letters with a male friend, a violation of religious law that forbids contact between members of the opposite sex. Vincent’s parents were unforgiving; they put her on a plane and cut off ties.
Cast out in New York City, without a father or husband tethering her to the Orthodox community, Vincent was unprepared to navigate the freedoms of secular life. She spent the next few years using her sexuality as a way of attracting the male approval she had been conditioned to seek out as a child, while becoming increasingly unfaithful to the religious dogma of her past.
“Cut Me Loose” tells the story of one woman’s harrowing struggle to define herself as an individual, according to the press release. Today, Vincent is a writer and activist who holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
In addition to writing for various publications, she is an advocate for reform within ultra-Orthodoxy and for the empowerment of former ultra-Orthodox Jews seeking a selfdetermined life.
She works with Footsteps, the only organization in the United States supporting formerly ultra-Orthodox individuals.