OUR COMMUNITY

18 | AUGUST 18 • 2022

Y

ehudah Pryce grew
up in a tough world.
Born Omar Pryce,
he became involved with Los
Angeles gangs at a young
age. As the son of a mother
from Sri Lanka who divorced
his father from Jamaica and
remarried a white man, Pryce
struggled with his identity.
“He wasn’t accepted by
the white community,”
says Rabbi Elya Silfen of
Bais Chabad Torah Center
of West Bloomfield. “He

wasn’t accepted
by the Black
community.”
Instead, Pryce
turned to groups
that would accept
him: the Crips
and Bloods gangs.
Yet his
acceptance came at a price.
Working as a mercenary for
the gangs, Pryce peddled
drugs, ammo and more.
He was thrown in juvenile
detention centers multiple

times, eventually landing in
California’s notorious Pelican
Bay State Prison as an adult.
While serving time in
prison, Pryce discovered
Judaism — and he’ll
be sharing his story of
redemption over the course of
two days at Bais Chabad on
Aug. 19 and 20.

FINDING JUDAISM
Surrounded by a handful of
Jewish inmates in prison,
Pryce was introduced to

Judaism and began to read
books about the religion.
The concept spoke to him
and ignited a desire to change
his troubled life. “He decided
that he wanted to convert to
Orthodox Judaism, but he
had to finish out his sentence
first,” Silfen explains.
Pryce got in touch with
the Rabbinical Council of
America, one of the world’s
largest organizations of
Orthodox rabbis, who advised
him to contact a synagogue in
Los Angeles when he got out
of prison. Pryce was serving
more than 16 years for a
nonviolent robbery and was
finally released in October
2018.
A year after being
released, he followed the
council’s advice and officially
converted. He left his birth
name in the past and formally
changed his name to Yehudah
Pryce. The previous gang
member went back to school,
graduated with honors and
completed a master’s degree
in social work. Now, he’s
studying for his doctorate as
well.
Pryce is currently working
as a social worker for
the Young Adult Court
in Orange Country and
as a psychotherapist at
the residential addiction
treatment center Beit
T’Shuvah. He lives with his
wife and children in Los
Angeles as a practicing and
observant Chasidic Jew.
“The story, aside from
being fascinating, is a
snapshot into a different life,”
says Rabbi Shneur Silberberg
of Bais Chabad, who is
organizing Pryce’s speaking

Rabbi Elya
Silfen

A former gang member shares his tale
of redemption at Bais Chabad event.

From Crips
and Bloods to
Orthodox Judaism

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

LEFT: Yehudah
Pryce during his
morning prayers.

continued on page 20