When Leah Lax was asked to write an opera to cel­e­brate local immi­grants, she sought out peo­ple will­ing to tell her about their jour­neys to the Unit­ed States and lis­tened for a year. The result was trans­for­ma­tive. She found the true con­text for her Jew­ish fam­i­ly sto­ry. It was if she had dis­cov­ered Amer­i­ca; found its great, beat­ing heart. She found home. Lax has had a dual career as an author and as a libret­tist. Her first book — now an opera by com­pos­er Lori Lait­man — was Uncov­ered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Final­ly Came Home, the first gay mem­oir to come out of the Jew­ish ultra-Ortho­dox world.