From Gangs To G-d: The Wild Redemption Of Dr. Yehudah Pryce

He Was Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison. Behind Bars, He Found Truth.

It’s not every day that you meet a man who’s lived two lives — one filled with violence, crime, and darkness, and another radiant with faith, light, and peace. When I first sat down with Dr. Yehudah Pryce for my Jewish and Joyful podcast, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The headlines about him sounded almost too impossible to believe — gang member turned Orthodox Jew. But as he began to speak, his words held that rare quality of absolute truth, the kind you can feel in your bones.

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Yehudah’s story begins far from any synagogue or yeshivah. He grew up in Orange County, California — the child of a Sri Lankan Muslim mother and a Jamaican father who crossed the border with $150 in his pocket. His parents split when he was two. His mother later remarried a white man, and in the neighborhood where they lived, Yehudah stood out for all the wrong reasons.

“As a little Black kid,” he said, “I’d get chased home, called names I didn’t even understand. I didn’t fit anywhere — not at school, not at home. I just wanted to belong.”

At thirteen, he found that sense of belonging in the streets. “The gang gave me an identity,” he said. “They made me feel powerful, like I finally mattered.” But the power was poisoned. By sixteen, he was robbing drug dealers. By nineteen, he was running full-time with criminals. When the police raided his mother’s home and found a handgun, a mini-Uzi, and stolen goods, Yehudah’s double life collapsed.

“I was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison,” he said. “You can’t even process that number at nineteen. I told myself I was a gangster — this is what happens. But deep down, I was terrified.”

They sent him to Pelican Bay, one of the toughest prisons in America. Violence was a daily language. “If a white inmate fought a Black inmate, you had to join your side or risk being attacked by your own,” he said. Days blurred into months. Lockdowns lasted weeks. “We’d get a five-minute shower every few days. I’d pour water from a toilet over my head and call it clean.”

To numb the pain, they brewed alcohol out of apples and sugar — “pruno.” Yehudah drank it often, not to celebrate but to forget. “You tell yourself you’re alive, but really, you’re dying a little each day.”

And yet, even in that darkness, something in him stirred. “I started asking, Is this it? I’d see people murdered over nothing. I began reading — philosophy, psychology, religion. I was looking for meaning, but I didn’t even know what I was searching for.”

Then came the day that changed everything. A Reform rabbi began visiting the prison. Yehudah’s friend urged him to attend. “He said, ‘You love arguing religion — go debate the rabbi.’ So I went, ready to fight.”

The rabbi didn’t argue. He simply said, “Judaism works. It’s kept the Jewish people alive for thousands of years.” Then he handed Yehudah a book — To Be a Jew.

“That was it,” Yehudah said. “I read it cover to cover. I realized that the Jewish people themselves were proof of G-d. They’d survived every empire, every exile. No nation should live through that and still stand — unless something greater was holding them up.”

He started reading every book the rabbi could smuggle to him. Then he began teaching himself Hebrew. Alone in his cell, surrounded by noise and profanity, he whispered Shemoneh Esrei — prayer by prayer — until he memorized it. “I didn’t know if G-d heard me,” he said, “but I kept talking. And one night, I realized — I wasn’t talking to myself anymore.”

Before Shabbos, he would put on his cleanest prison clothes, mix powdered grape juice into water, and make kiddush. “The other inmates started calling me ‘Shabbat,’” he laughed softly. “They’d say, ‘Leave him — he’s with G-d right now.’”

But there was nothing funny about it. “I was surrounded by hatred and filth, but in those moments, I felt peace. I knew Hashem was there, even in Pelican Bay.”

Years later, through a contraband cell phone, Yehudah met a Jewish woman from Canada on Instagram — a woman who had grown up religious but had lost her way. “She told me, ‘I still believe — it’s just hard for me.’ That honesty got to me. She gave me hope.”

She visited once a year, always under supervision. “She never judged me. She saw who I was trying to become, not who I’d been.”

When Yehudah had nine years left on his sentence, the Supreme Court ordered California to release prisoners due to overcrowding. He became eligible for early parole. Before his release, a letter arrived from Rabbi Israel Zylberstein of Beth Jacob Irvine: ‘Our community will welcome you when you come home.’

“I cried when I read it,” Yehudah said. “In prison, people told me, ‘The Jews will never accept you.’ But Hashem did. That was enough.”

On October 22, 2018, after sixteen years, Yehudah walked out of prison. He enrolled in college immediately, finishing his sociology degree, then earning a master’s and doctorate in social work at USC. He applied for giyur through the Rabbinical Council of California.

“When I stepped into the mikvah, it felt like my whole life had led to that moment,” he said. “When I came up from the water, I felt new — not reborn like a cliché, but truly new. The first thing I did was pull over on the side of the road, take out my tefillin, and cry. I wrapped them and prayed with tears streaming down my face. I wasn’t just free — I was finally alive.”

Today, Dr. Pryce directs national mental health programs for Defy Ventures, helping inmates rebuild their lives. He also works as a therapist at the Chabad Treatment Center in Los Angeles, guiding Jews and non-Jews alike through recovery.

“People think addiction is about drugs,” he said. “It’s not. It’s about disconnection. The opposite of addiction is connection — to people, to purpose, to G-d.”

He still carries his prison nickname, Shabbat, but now it’s a badge of honor. “Every week when I light candles with my wife, when I sit at the table with my kids, I remember those dark nights. I remember that Hashem found me there.”

I asked him what he would tell a teenager chasing that “cool gangster life.” He didn’t hesitate. “It’s all fake. It’s pain wearing sunglasses. Real courage is choosing kindness. Real strength is choosing good.”

And to anyone who feels trapped or broken beyond repair, his message is pure emunah: “Your story isn’t over. Hashem hasn’t given up on you. Redemption can happen in a blink. I met G-d in a maximum-security prison. If He was there, He’s everywhere.”

As we move through the long winter nights — a time when darkness feels heavier and the world grows quieter — Yehudah’s story burns brighter. It reminds us that no matter how far we fall, the Divine light can still reach us.

As the Kotzker Rebbe said, “Where is G-d to be found? Wherever you let Him in.”

Sometimes, to find what’s real, you have to lose everything else.

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Aryeh Fingerer is a passionate Jewish speaker who connects with readers around the world through his meaningful and relatable divrei Torah. He’s dedicated to spreading positivity and strengthening our bond with Yiddishkeit through stories, insights, and timeless Torah values.
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