Emunah & Yakov Clemons: We Were Just Searching For G-D
Meaningful People
Meaningful Minute
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Emunah and Yaakov share their extraordinary journey from the Christian South to a fully observant Jewish life in Israel. Married young and raised in different Christian backgrounds, they describe years of deep questioning, searching for truth, and slowly uncovering Judaism, often completely on their own, without a Jewish community, rabbi, or guide. What began as questions about faith, practice, and God turned into years of living Jewish life in isolation, learning Torah, keeping Shabbat, and observing the holidays long before they ever met a Jew face-to-face.
They walk through the emotional, spiritual, and practical challenges of conversion, relocating to a Jewish community, completing their giyur, and making aliyah in the aftermath of October 7. From driving 10 hours every Shabbat to Atlanta, to converting and remarrying in the same week, this conversation is about conviction, sacrifice, and choosing responsibility over comfort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We got married really, really young. |
| 0:01.2 | I was 17. |
| 0:02.1 | I would say like traditional Christian. |
| 0:04.4 | The best way I know to communicate is the Haredi of Christianity. |
| 0:07.2 | What drove you to where you are right now? |
| 0:08.8 | I had big questions even as a young child. |
| 0:13.9 | I think at first we thought we were trying to find a different denomination. |
| 0:17.4 | We thought maybe our questions could be answered within Christianity. What were some of the questions that you guys have? |
| 0:22.6 | I really had a problem with the whole idea of this Messiah figure was sent |
| 0:27.6 | because God made a mistake and needed to create a new religion. |
| 0:30.6 | I also had a problem with praying to a human. Why can't I just talk to God? |
| 0:34.6 | Meet Emuna and Yaakov Clemens, married at 17 and 21 years old, raised deep in the |
| 0:40.2 | Christian South, asking questions most people never stopped to ask. |
| 0:43.5 | What started as a search for answers inside Christianity slowly became something much bigger. |
| 0:47.5 | Questions about God, truth, history, and obligation. |
| 0:51.3 | Long before they ever met a Jew, they were already living Jewish lives in isolation. reading texts, keeping Shabbas, and searching for a roadmap they didn't even know existed. This is the story how those questions led them somewhere they never expected. Maybe we should actually go back and read the Old Testament. It says to keep Shabbat. Well, how do we do that? It says to keep Passover. How do we do that? |
| 1:10.9 | If I had to struggle with these things, yeah. |
| 1:12.3 | So you're telling me from 2014 to 2020, there was no conversion yet? |
| 1:15.4 | I'm wondering like, wait, maybe we are supposed to convert, but I don't know how. |
| 1:20.0 | You guys are living as Jews. |
| 1:21.4 | It got to that point. |
| 1:22.3 | We sat down, okay, we need to go find a place to convert to Judaism. This is something that we're going to choose. I've never felt so alone in my entire life. That emptiness was a cry to say, okay, we need this. What's up, my friends, welcome to another episode of the Meaningfield podcast. This podcast made possible, my friends at PZ Deals. Yes, never pay full price again when you go in the PZ Deals app right now. You want to purchase something on Amazon. |
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