I Am Forbidden: A Novel

After her parents are slain in Transylvania in 1944, five-year-old Mila Heller is adopted by a Hasidic rabbi's family that soon moves to Paris. The family sends Mila and their other daughter, Atara, to a seminary that provides women with a proper religious education. Mila embraces the Hasidic way of life and marries and settles in the Satmar community in Brooklyn, while Atara, much to her parents' chagrin, opts out of this way of life. One of these women will serve a pivotal role for the other decades later.