A Jewish woman in New York whose suicide precipitated a fierce debate over the treatment of those seeking to leave ultra-Orthodoxy this week sent a letter to a close friend lambasting religion and recounting her difficulties in fitting into the Belz hassidic sect as a child in Brooklyn only days before her death.

Faigy Mayer, 30, climbed a ledge and jumped Monday evening during a party on the roof of the 230 Fifth restaurant and lounge in the Flatiron District, just south of midtown. Some bar patrons continued to drink after the woman jumped and police cordoned off the area.

In a letter to her friend Yangbo Du reprinted by the Daily Mail, Mayer described aspects of religious law such as kashrut and sabbath prohibitions “bullshit” and complained of the minimal secular educations and limited horizons available to those who grew up as she did.

“I feel as though hassidic Judaism shouldn't exist at all,” she wrote. “My 3 nephews are being raised in a very strict hassidic Jewish environment. It isn't fair to them that they have to live their lives the way they do. The most fun they have is to color with crayons.”

She complained about bans on internet access and other, similar, restrictions imposed on members of the more insular Jewish groups, explaining that even though she thought that “right now the rabbis are winning,” the need to access the internet would eventually break down walls between the ultra-orthodox and the wider world.

“If people were allowed to think, they would not be religious. Thinking analytically when it comes to basic life decisions is something new to me and something I still struggle with, 5 years after leaving,” Mayer complained.

In an op-ed published in the Jewish Daily Forward on Wednesday, Rabbi Ysoscher Katz of Frum [observant] and Stuck, an support organization for those uncomfortable with their Jewish religious affiliation, blamed all of orthodoxy for her suicide.

“While Faigy may have taken her life, the will to live was taken away from her by a community that is sadly complacent and perhaps a tad distracted. All of us in the Orthodox world are somewhat complicit in her death,” he wrote.

“Faigy was a member of the XO (ex-Orthodox) community. Her story is not anomalous. Many in that community are struggling with similar issues, feeling ignored and communally neglected. We owe it to them to do better,” the former Satmar Hassid and now modern Orthodox rabbi asserted.

“Our efforts should be two-pronged. We need to develop a robust support system for those beautiful souls who are imprisoned by existential loneliness. They should know that our acceptance of them is absolute and unconditional and that we appreciate and even sanctify their journey in search of a true and authentic self.”

Last January, Haaretz reported that seven ex-haredim had taken their lives during a year and a half period, severely disconcerting the hundreds of other formerly religious members of their social circle.

Hard data tracking former haredi suicides over an extended period is unavailable and the extent of this issue is currently unclear.

The stresses of leaving behind closed communities that represented their entire world for years can be very hard on former haredim and are often exacerbated by a lack of formal education for members of the more extreme sects and by custody battles.

According to the New York Post, Mayer had long suffered from manic depression and had been cut off by her parents after she left Hassidism.

While her family reportedly came to her funeral, Meyer’s friends accused them of seeking to prevent them from attending as well.

Asked about her suicide, a spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America umbrella group called her death a “a stab to the heart of every caring Jew” which will be on the minds of many on the upcoming Tisha B’av fast day, which commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.

“By her own account, Faigy faced deep internal adversity from her early youth, and her letter, read carefully, only corroborates the clouded lens through which she viewed her environment. To blame her death, as some seem anxious to do, on the community into which she was born and that sought to nurture her is as repugnant as would be blaming the community she subsequently joined,” rabbi Avi Shafran told the Post.

“Her psychological challenges were not the result of her leaving her home and community, but arguably a cause of it. The only takeaway from this horrible loss is the need to de-stigmatize mental illness – in all communities – and to realize the tragedies that, if left untreated, it can bring about.”