I Was a Non-Jewish Atheist Who Became an Orthodox Jew

I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the eternal silent darkness that I was going to face when I died.

I was an atheist and believed that when I would pass away one day, I wasn’t going to heaven or hell. Those were made-up concepts to help people feel better about their bleak and miserable lives.

I was mature. I was enlightened. I didn’t believe in fairytales like the Bible or God.

But I had to admit, I was bothered by the thought of eternal nothingness.

Growing Up in a Secular Christian Home

I grew up in a secular Christian home in Baltimore. My family celebrated Christmas and Easter, and sometimes I went to church with my Catholic grandmother, but I never liked it. I’d be so bored sitting in the uncomfortable pews and listening to the priest talk about who knows what. The only part I enjoyed was when everyone started singing the songs I knew from “Sister Act.”

As a little kid, I believed in God innately. I thought He was some old man in the sky with a beard perhaps. And I learned you should pray to Him when you need something.

When my parents weren’t getting along, I prayed to God they wouldn’t get divorced.

But they did.

And then, when my grandma on my father’s side, my best friend, suddenly got sick, I prayed that she wouldn’t die.

But she did.

My faith started to falter.

When I was 12 years old and I went away to summer camp, my friend told me, “I don’t believe in God. He doesn’t exist.”

That never crossed my mind as a possibility. But now, I thought, it made sense.

None of my prayers worked. The stories from the Bible seemed crazy. If there were miracles back then, why didn’t any still happen today?

So at 12, I decided I was an atheist. God didn’t exist, and I was sure of it.

I spent the next decade battling depression and anxiety, and I blamed myself for being such a wreck. I thought, “I am in complete control of my life. If things aren’t going well, it’s all my fault.”

I had a major meltdown after a bad breakup my senior year of college. At the same time, I got bronchitis, which lasted for several weeks, I had to drop out of a class, and I didn’t do well at my prestigious internship at “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” where my dreams of getting a job abruptly came to an end. I was in the throngs of an existential crisis. What was I going to do with my life now that I was graduating?

It was on my mind the night I went to a comedy show in Brooklyn and met Daniel, a Jewish comedian who interned at “The Colbert Report.” He had a bad experience there and we bonded over our abysmal failures at Viacom.

I liked Daniel right away; he was funny, he was nice, and he was Jewish. Most of my friends were Jewish and the guys I dated were too. For some reason I’d always felt more comfortable around Jews, like I truly be myself around them.

A few months later, Daniel and I started dating. We were living in Brooklyn, and we were young and broke. One day, we didn’t have money for dinner and he said, “We should go to this place called Chabad. They give you a free Friday night dinner.” I agreed to go.

The rabbi and his family welcomed Daniel and I, and as I sat at the table filled with Jews of all different backgrounds, listening to the rabbi speak and eating delicious challah, I felt this warmth in my chest I’d never felt before.

Was this how you feel when you connect to God?

When dinner ended and we left, I asked Daniel, “Can we come back next week?”

We kept going to Chabad and switched off between there and his parents’ house for Shabbat. The more I learned about Judaism, the more I began to believe in God again. Judaism was addressing my major life questions, like, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” I learned that God has a greater plan, and that there is more than one world, and we must have faith and trust that God knows what He is doing, as hard as it is for us.

Eventually, I decided I was going to convert to Judaism.

I found an Orthodox synagogue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn – the Greenpoint Shul – where they held conversion classes. But Daniel was not too thrilled. He left practicing Judaism after getting kicked out of yeshiva for bad grades in secular studies.

“I don’t want to go back to an Orthodox lifestyle,” he said. “I didn’t fit in. They didn’t want me.”

But I was determined. I kept going to class and one day, he showed up… to yell at the rabbi and get me to stop this Orthodox conversion nonsense.

As he sat across from the rabbi, listing all his gripes with Orthodox Judaism and how he didn’t want to be dragged back into this, the rabbi listened patiently. When Daniel was finished, the rabbi said, “I understand why you’re so upset. You were wronged, and if that happened to me, I’d be hesitant too. I grew up Orthodox, and I’m still Orthodox. I think now that you’re an adult, you can do what you want and make it a more positive experience. Our class is always open to you. But if you walk out of here and decide to never come back, I’d completely understand.”

Finally, someone has listened to and understood Daniel. The rabbi’s message stuck with him.

The next week while I was in class, Daniel came in and took a seat next to me. After that, he came every single week and began to remember what he loved about Judaism. He started putting on tefillin again, affixed a mezuzah on his doorway, began buying kosher meat, and did Shabbat dinner with me.

The Valuable Lessons Judaism Taught Me

What I loved so much about Judaism was the learning. You could ask question after question and debate every single topic known to man. So much of it made sense to me. For instance, I thought miracles didn’t happen anymore but they did once you look at life with fresh eyes. Childbirth was a miracle. Gravity was a miracle. It was a miracle that I woke up every single morning.

I learned to be grateful and appreciate life. I started to thank God for the opportunity to live another day. I wasn’t in complete control. It was on me to do the right thing, but also to believe that God had a plan for me and if things didn’t go my way, I should trust that it was for the best.

I completed my conversion five years after I started, choosing the Hebrew name Ronit Ora. Ora meant light, and Ronit meant happy or joyous singer. Daniel told me to choose a Hebrew name that would symbolize who I aspired to be; I wanted to be a happy and joyous light for the world.

When I converted, I felt I became who I was always meant to be. Converts’ souls were at Sinai, receiving the Torah with the rest of the Jewish nation. My Jewish soul traveled generations to get to me.

My husband and me at the Western Wall

During my conversion process, a Holocaust survivor asked me, “Why would you choose to be part of such a hated people?”

I said, “It’s not a choice. I’m becoming who I was meant to be all along.”

I converted in 2015 and married Daniel, who had come fully back to Judaism. We now live in Pico-Robertson in Los Angeles, an amazing community filled with the most giving and wonderful people I’ve ever met.

In converting to Judaism, I not only affirmed my identity, I also joined the most resilient and giving group of people who continue to inspire me every single day.

Seeing All the Miracles

A few weeks ago, I was lying in bed with Daniel, cuddling our three children, stroking their hair, and watching them sleep soundly. They were perfect.

I thought about how I used to feel so alone, so anxious, so full of dread.

Now, I had all of this. I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

My life went from black and white to color. From dark to light. From bleak to beautiful.

What a miracle.

Click here to purchase Kylie’s just-published book, “Choosing to Be Chosen: From Being an Atheist Non-Jew to Becoming an Orthodox Jew,” (Wicked Son, Feb. 2026)

Featured image by Jonah Light