Meilech Kohn: From Hasidic To Homeless On Drugs… & Back

Meilech Kohn’s story is not a straight line. It is a winding road of pain and survival, faith and fracture, wandering and return. It is the story of a deeply sensitive soul who left everything he knew, fell to the margins of society, and slowly — painfully — found his way home.

 

A Quiet, Broken Childhood

As a child, Meilech was painfully shy. He spoke softly, avoided attention, and carried a sadness he could never fully explain. He grew up in a Hasidic home, surrounded by Torah, yet internally felt isolated. School was not a refuge. In yeshivah, he was bullied relentlessly. Friends were fleeting. Trust was fragile.

“I didn’t really have friends,” he recalls. “I was laughed at. Betrayed. I kept telling myself — a few more days, a few more weeks, a few more years, and I’ll be out.”

His father, a Holocaust survivor, was a towering figure — dignified, generous, and deeply wounded by loss. He gave endless tzedakah, fed strangers, sent his children delivering food and clothing to those in need. But he belonged to another world, another generation. There was love, but little emotional access.

The loneliness took root early.

 

Leaving Home, Losing Direction

At thirteen, Meilech asked to leave his yeshivah. What followed were years of dislocation — different schools, England, then back to the United States. Along the way, experiences he could not speak about publicly further fractured his trust in people and institutions. He does not frame himself as a victim. Responsibility, he insists, always remained his.

When he finally left religious life, he did not return home. Instead, he wandered. New York. Temporary jobs. Couch-surfing. Music tugged at him constantly — melodies forming in his head — but he lacked the tools, the education, and the confidence to pursue it seriously.

 

Life on the Streets

Hollywood Boulevard became home. Meilech lived among runaways, addicts, and lost souls. His guitar was stolen. Food was uncertain. Shelter was improvised. He did not think of himself as homeless — just unwanted.

Drugs and alcohol entered the picture not as rebellion, but as escape. Without structure, without support, numbing the pain felt inevitable.

“I always spoke to Hashem,” he says. “Even on the streets. That’s what I had.”

 

Anti-Semitism and Awakening

In Puerto Rico, while working alongside criminal associates, casual anti-Jewish comments cut deeper than expected. It jolted him awake. For the first time in years, he called home and told his father he loved him — brief, awkward, and monumental.

 

The Long Way Back

Meilech rebuilt slowly — reconnecting with family, finding work, gravitating back toward Torah spaces. He attended a Gateway Shabbaton and sang nusach publicly for the first time in years. Doors opened unexpectedly.

He eventually became a baal tefillah, but refused to continue when the work required compromise. Turning down steady income felt terrifying — but necessary.

 

Healing the Past

Helping his father into the mikvah was one of the most emotionally difficult moments of his life. Tattoo removal was long, expensive, and painful, but each scar fading felt like reclaiming something sacred.

 

A Life Reclaimed

Today, Meilech Kohn is no longer homeless. No longer lost. He does not romanticize the journey. His faith is lived, honest, and resilient. “No matter how far someone falls,” he says, “there is always hope.”

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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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