The Dark side of My ULTRA ORTHODOX Childhood in Jerusalem
Cults to Consciousness
Shelise Ann Sola, Jonathan C Rosales
4.8 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shalom Shore grew up in a strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish environment in Jerusalem connected to the organization Aish HaTorah, dedicated to its mission of bringing secular Jews back to strict religious observance. As the oldest of nine children, Shalom grew up in a household that appeared ideal, but was marked by emotional neglect, financial stress, and a constant focus on religious outreach.
Shalom’s childhood and education were dominated by intense religious indoctrination. He attended a strict ultra-Orthodox school 365 days a year, where boys studied religious texts from early morning until late at night, with little secular education and frequent physical punishment from teachers. The rigid environment, lack of emotional support, and strict moral expectations led to anxiety, obsessive religious guilt, and deep internal conflict, particularly around sexuality and personal identity. The community’s teachings pushed him toward early marriage as a supposed solution to normal sexual urges and loneliness. He then became a Rabbi and eventually left it all behind.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.8 | So this day, there's like prison bars in my mind where I just don't let myself enjoy like basic things or just go to a library even though I can. |
| 0:38.3 | Every summer I'm plagued with guilt, the nicer the day out. |
| 0:43.3 | The more like the sun is just shining bright and it's beautiful out, the more reminds me |
| 0:47.3 | of the feeling when I was a kid where I just really wanted to be outdoors, |
| 0:50.3 | but knew that the urge of being outdoors was a sin, where I'm supposed to be sitting indoors all day studying. |
| 0:57.0 | The sun is shining. I'm not doing my job. The entire world sits on your shoulders, eight years old onwards. |
| 1:03.0 | The more we studied, the less natural disasters would be happening in the world. And more Jews would repent. |
| 1:09.0 | Jews would be saved and the final redemption |
| 1:11.2 | would arrive. No idle thoughts. Don't think of anything. Walk to and from prayers at like 7 o'clock |
| 1:17.0 | in the morning. I'd be walking in the street reading Jewish law just to take advantage of those extra |
| 1:22.2 | few minutes. Really try to not waste any second of the day. You are so concerned with just like repeating things in your mind. It doesn't even strike me as weird even now as I tell you this because I'm so not used to like conventional dating. You're a sinful person. When you get married, you won't have it. And that was a huge contributing push to get married as soon as possible. You go from like, you're never supposed to |
| 1:44.5 | talk to women to like, sure, go ahead, go to a coffee shop and schmooze it up with a woman. We dated for an |
| 1:49.0 | entire month because that's how liberal I am, 10 dates. And then I decided to marry the first person |
| 1:54.0 | I'd ever dated. Upon our engagement ceremony, when we came back to my house for the party, |
| 1:59.0 | my father takes a look at her and says, |
| 2:04.1 | this isn't the woman I'd met that day at that government office. |
... |
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