ABSTRACT
The emerging subgenre of “off-the-derekh” memoirs and novels has acquired notoriety for its exposure of the intimate world of closed Jewish religious communities and its airing of the conflicts of exiters who have become secular. The discovery of sex and the empowering experience of coming out have inspired some formerly religious Jewish women to publish their story. However, a different perspective of women who have returned to faith and have abandoned the promiscuous freedom of secular life has also become a strong literary theme in the United States and in Israel—where autobiographical fiction discusses frankly the issues of sexuality and femininity in the choice of a religious lifestyle. Often the path of repentance is rocky and pitted by doubts, and the destination is not always known.
