Jonathan Bock­ian grew up in Brook­lyn, New York, where he attend­ed Ortho­dox yeshiv­ot. A grad­u­ate of New York Uni­ver­si­ty and Har­vard Law School, he has been a prac­tic­ing attor­ney, a stay-at-home dad, and a civic activist. Curios­i­ty about an inscrip­tion in a Venice syn­a­gogue inspired What Was For­bid­den, his debut nov­el. He and his wife live in Massachusetts.