Yehudah Pryce: gang member and convict who became an Orthodox Jew

Yehudah Pryce had just spent three years in prison. The 22-year-old gang member was involved in an armed robbery in which he and an accomplice robbed several drug dealers. The accomplice turned him in for a plea deal, and Pryce ended up behind bars.

After serving time, he was to receive his sentence: 24 years in prison. The court gave him four years for robbery, 10 years for a gang enhancement, and 10 years for a gun enhancement. He was promptly sent to Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum-security prison in California.

“I thought prison was cool,” Pryce said in an interview with Aish.com. “I understood what it meant to be a gangster and a thug in this kind of environment. It made sense to me. I was aggressive and confrontational. I felt like I could outsmart my opponents. And I didn’t care whether I lived or died.”

Becoming a gangster

Pryce grew up in Orange County, California, a sunny enclave in Southern California. He is the son of a Sri Lankan mother and a Jamaican father. His parents were divorced, so his mother and white stepfather raised him. He felt out of place because he was a minority in his neighborhood.

“Before I was 8, my identity crisis started,” he said. “If I got into a fight with a black friend, he would bring up my family. I saw it as my Achilles heel. Everyone was so invested in my race and what I looked like. I couldn’t enjoy my life.”

Pryce didn’t fit in at school and he didn’t feel like he belonged at church either.

“We only went on specific holidays,” he said. “When my biological father took me to church, we tried to get there late and leave early.”

By the time Pryce was a teenager, he was lost – until he discovered the gang lifestyle. He started selling drugs, stealing and carrying guns at 13.

“I wanted to take control and fit in,” he said. “I lived my life the way I wanted and wasn’t burdened by my family’s or society’s ideas of what I should or shouldn’t do. I wasn’t excited about the idea of ​​going to work every day, getting married and having kids. That wasn’t enough for me. I actively tried to avoid that.”

He had no role model and admired the gang members.

“I didn’t look up to anyone or see myself in anyone,” he said. “Once I got involved with the gang members — who were violent and selling drugs — I looked up to them and had respect for them.”

When the teenager became a gangster, he didn’t belong to any particular gang, and that was by design.

“That’s how I was able to gain notoriety among a variety of gangs and the subculture in general,” he said. “Your reputation precedes itself when you go from gang to gang.”

Pryce was sent to juvenile detention a few times for robberies and drug dealing. When he was 16 and his entire family was home, his house was shot up. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The dramatic event did not stop him from leaving the gang lifestyle either.

“I felt like I belonged,” he said. “There was a camaraderie. When you commit crimes together, you build a bond between people. No one questioned my identity. Maybe it was out of fear. Also, I loved having guns. There was a sense of power, where you had control over life and death. It made me stronger in this world. I liked being feared and respected.”

When Pryce became an adult, he decided he would rob drug dealers, thinking they wouldn’t call the police. He would be less likely to get arrested. But after his mugging at 19—when his accomplice turned on him—his days on the streets were over.

He now faced a prison sentence of more than twenty years.

Finding his faith in prison

At Pelican Bay, where prisoners spend all day in their cells and are rarely allowed outside, Pryce suddenly had a lot of time to fill. He picked up some books on Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, but he didn’t connect with any of them.

And then Pelican Bay brought in a rabbi to talk to the inmates. The rabbi came during the lockdown and was there to meet with some of the inmates. The prison offered him a chair, but instead he sat on the floor with the inmates.

“It wasn’t meant to be a statement,” Pryce said. “His natural character traits stood out to me.”

That rabbi was only there temporarily; Pryce would enter into a six-year relationship with the next rabbi who came.

He argued with the rabbi about organized religion, calling it the opium of the masses. One thing that stood out about the rabbi’s conversations was that he said that you didn’t have to be a Jew to be a good person.

“It made so much sense to me,” Pryce said. “My problem with religion was that people said their religion was the only way. I thought, how can you say that?”

He also learned about the discrimination against the Jewish people throughout history.

“The Jews were persecuted wherever they lived, and they thrived,” he said. “This was proof to me that God existed. I wanted to be more connected to it.”

After reading books on Judaism, Pryce turned to the prayer book, which resonated with him. He memorized the silent Jewish prayer, the Amidah.

“I wanted to be able to pray from memory in case we went into lockdown,” he said. “Then I could pray three times a day.”

Pryce’s fellow inmates were anything but encouraging. Race and identity were everything behind bars; Pryce was once stabbed simply for being black. When they saw him learning about Judaism, they began to tease him.

“They said the Jews wouldn’t accept me,” he said. “They said I wouldn’t fit in.”

Still, Pryce had to follow his heart. He obtained a smuggled smartphone and read as much as he could about Judaism. He also ordered tallit and tefillin and wore them every day, and met a Jewish woman named Ariella on Instagram. He began eating kosher in prison and observed Shabbat on his own. He became a Jewish chapel attendant and led Jewish groups.

After studying Judaism for two years, he decided he would convert to the Orthodox faith, even though he had never met an Orthodox Jew.

When he was in prison for 13 years, a law was passed in California that allowed prisoners sentenced before the age of 23 to be eligible for parole because prisons were overcrowded.

Three years later, in 2018, after serving a total of 16 years in prison, Pryce was released. He was now in a relationship with Ariella, who had been raised in an Orthodox family but had strayed from the practice, and he had applied for conversion. When he met the Orthodox rabbi who performed conversions, he was surprised by the reaction.

“He didn’t judge me,” said Pryce, who is covered in tattoos. “He said to me, ‘Let’s try it.’ My experience has been one of complete acceptance.”

Living as an Orthodox Jew

Pryce joined the Orthodox Jewish community in Irvine and converted in 2020. He then married Ariella, who moved from Canada to California to be with him. His family accepted his decision.

“My mother converted from Islam to Christianity and my father is a Baptist, but they both respect Judaism,” he said. “They saw me as a completely committed gangster and criminal, and now they see me living this healthy life. They are super grateful for Judaism and supportive.”

Now a father of four, Pryce lives in Los Angeles with Ariella in an Orthodox Jewish community. He holds a doctorate and is a clinical social worker at Chabad Treatment Center. He has a large following on Instagram, where he shares videos about his life and the fight against anti-Semitism, and he posted several photos and videos from his powerful trip to Israel after October 7.

He also posts about his personal life and lets his followers know what’s going on with his family. He recently celebrated his son Yochanan’s upsherin, the haircut boys get when they turn three, along with tzitzit, a yarmulke and a prayer book. This milestone was a miracle: when Yochanan was four months old, he nearly died and was rushed to the hospital.

“My wife and I were in shock as doctors tried to figure out how to treat him,” Pryce said.

But with the help of their Jewish compatriots, they and their beautiful son survived.

“It was my Jewish community, family and friends, and Chai Lifeline that enabled my wife and I to weather the storm,” Pryce said. “After five months, my son was released from the hospital and has now made a full recovery.”

Looking back on his life, Pryce can see that he has been blessed. And if he could say anything to his younger self, it would be this: “You face challenges and tough situations and make bad choices. How do you want the next chapters to unfold? You have to create a story that matters. You matter, and you only have one life to live.”

Pryce uses his platform to be a proud, visible Jew at all times and is constantly working on his life’s mission: building a strong relationship with God.

“I want to continue to grow my connection with God,” he said. “The closer I get to Him, the clearer everything becomes.”

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