Sorin chose Brown to speak at New Paltz because he was very impressed by her novel, and found it important for others to engage with her on it. “It is a coincidence that the first three speakers are people who have left the world of ultra-orthodox Judaism,” series director and emeritus professor, Gerald Sorin said. Some don’t survive it,” she said.īrown spoke in front of a packed Lecture Center Room 104 as part of the Resnick Lecture series, “Jews and Modern Memoir.” She was the second speaker in the series, following a man, Shulem Deen, who also spoke about leaving the Hasidic world.

It violated the rules of what you are not allowed to know,” she said of the Hasidic community.īeing ignorant of the repercussions of leaving, wanting a better life for her children and feeling shunned by her community, Brown felt she had no choice but to leave. “Writing wasn’t a gift it was a betrayal.

Brown received major backlash from the community when she revealed her identity in a Huffington Post article in 2011. In 2010, she published “Hush” under a pseudonym, Eishes Chayil, out of guilt for carrying these harsh truths with her. But Brown said writing the novel “quickly became a nightmare.” She began releasing these stories onto the page as a form of therapy after her peers confided in her about horrific sexual abuse they had endured. The writer was burdened with stories of suffering from those whom she referred to as “the children of the underworld.” Among them was a young girl expelled from school for reporting molestation. Unfortunately, in the deeply religious world in which she grew up, child molestation runs rampant.īrown is a woman who left her Hasidic community in Brooklyn after writing “Hush,” a fiction novel based on true experiences of sexual abuse and suicide written from the perspective of a child. However, the topic was deeply discussed during Judy Brown’s visit to SUNY New Paltz on Sept. In ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, the terms “sexual abuse” and “sexual assault” are forbidden. Photo courtesy of Walker Books for Young Readers.

Hush by Eishes Chayil