A mother was driven to suicide after her children rejected her over her decision to become secular.

"In this city I gave birth to my daughters, in this city I die because of my daughters," Esti Weinstein wrote in a note found next to her body, which was discovered in a locked car on a beach in Ashdod on Sunday.

Ms Weinstein, 50, left her life as a member of the Chasidic Gur sect eight years ago and all of her seven grown-up daughters, bar one who also became secular, cut ties with her.

Yair Hess, executive director of Hillel, a support group for Charedim who become secular, said: "The fact that she wasn't able to have contact with her daughters and grandchildren - she knew that she had a new grandchild whom she couldn't meet - was the most difficult thing."

Thousands of volunteers, many of them former Charedim, searched the country for her, but it was a horrified walker who came across the car and her body on Sunday.

Shortly before leaving home, Ms Weinstein emailed friends with the text of a book she had written. This focused on the sadness of her married life, which was governed by the sexual ethos of the Gur sect.

She wrote that sex was limited to twice-a-month. When she asked for more, her husband said the rebbe of the Gur sect set the sexual frequency of his followers. Ms Weinstein's religious relatives lost a court battle to give her a religious burial and she was due to receive a secular funeral, in line with her wishes.