Inspiration for the Nation with Yaakov Langer
Inspiration for the Nation with Yaakov Langer

Shoshana Lichtman: She Returned to Judaism. Then Discovered She Wasn't Jewish...

October 10, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

"I Wasn't Actually Jewish": One Woman's Journey From Identity Crisis to Conversion

The night before a close family member's surgery, 17-year-old Shoshana Lichtman stayed up until dawn repeating the Shema Israel over and over—the only prayer she remembered from childhood. "I was so scared that I didn't know how to pray," she recalls. "But I was so scared that this person was going to die, God forbid." After that night, she realized something fundamental: "I really need Hashem. I couldn't have gotten through this without him. Something is really missing from my life. This isn't a little thing that I'm missing. This is something I need."

That realization set her on a path that would lead her to Orthodox Judaism—and then to a discovery that shattered everything she thought she knew about herself.

A Childhood of Contradictions

Lichtman grew up in central New Jersey on a farm, attending a shul called the Farmer Shul, where photos of old Orthodox farmers still hung on the walls. Her family was what she describes as "conservadox"—they made challah every Friday, kept kosher, said the Shema before bed. But by the time she was seven, it began unraveling.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Introduction & Childhood: Growing Up “Conservadox”** - Shoshana describes growing up on a farm in central New Jersey in a family that was initially observant but drifted away when she was around seven.
  • 2 (07:07) **Parental Motivation & Community Loss** - The host asks why the family’s observance fell apart so abruptly; Shoshana explains it was a gradual process tied to a lack of community.
  • 3 (09:50) **Teen Years: Disillusionment and Inner Faith** - In high school, Shoshana faced pressure to be secular and atheist, but held onto a private connection to Hashem.
  • 4 (15:39) **The Turning Point: A Night of Shema** - At 17, a close family member nearly died; Shoshana stayed up all night saying Shema Yisrael over and over, the only prayer she remembered.
  • 5 (20:43) **College: Reconnecting Without a Map** - The summer before college, Shoshana tried to reconnect by going to her childhood shul, but found it empty of community and felt like “an audience” rather than a participant.
  • 6 (24:52) **The Chabad Seder That Changed Everything** - For Pesach, she went to Chabad MIT and was overwhelmed by the warmth and passion she found there.
  • 7 (28:40) **The Wrench: Discovering She Wasn’t Halachically Jewish** - After returning home from college, Shoshana learned that her mother’s conversion was not accepted by Orthodox standards, meaning she herself was not Jewish.

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Show Notes

Shoshana Lichtman grew up in a Conservadox Jewish home, but over time, she and her family drifted away from Judaism. Years later, Shoshana found her way back to Torah, becoming fully frum and embracing an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.


Then she discovered something shocking: She wasn't actually Jewish.


After years of keeping Shabbos, learning Torah, and living a frum life, Shoshana learned she would need to undergo a halachic conversion to Judaism.


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