Leah Vincent


Leah Vincent is an American author.

Early life and education

Leah Miller was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by a Yeshivish Jewish family. She was a student at Brooklyn College from 2002 to 2007. She graduated from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government with a Master of Public Policy degree as a Pforzheimer Fellow in 2009.

Career

In her January 2014 memoir, Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood, published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, Vincent describes her own experience leaving the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and how she herself came to lead a self-determined life.
Vincent is an advocate for "reform" within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. She has spoken out on issues of abuse in the religious community.
Vincent is both a member and a board member of Footsteps, an organization that serves former ultra-Orthodox Jews who seek to enter or explore the world beyond the Jewish communities in which they were raised.
Her blogs calling for reform have been published by the Huffington Post, Unpious, and Zeek.
In July 2013, in partnership with Footsteps and the UJA-Federation of New York, Vincent co-ordinated and hosted an event with a panel of rabbis from across the spectrum of progressive Jewish communities; the title of the event was "Beyond Romanticization and Vilification". Vincent's speech and the ensuing panel discussion were broadcast by Shalom TV.
She is also a co-producer of the It Gets Besser Project, a website which, imitating the methodology of the It Gets Better Project, aims to "give hope" to individuals struggling with the choice of leaving the ultra-Orthodox world.
In 2016, Vincent participated in a project called Real Women Real Stories founded by Matan Uziel, in order to bring her story to light once again.
In 2019, Vincent came out as genderqueer and changed their first name to Jericho.

Publications