Ex-Hasidim To Tell All on Reality TV
Call it “Jersey Sheitel”.
Three former Ultra-Orthodox Jews will star in a reality show about their post-religious lives, according to the New York Post.
The subjects of “shunned” will include an aspiring model/actress named Pearlperry Reich — currently embroiled in a divorce and custody battle for her four kids — who told the Post her “main purpose is to create a positive Judaism… And a really good opportunity for me to get my face out there.”
Shauli Grossman, 24, who’s dating Reich, said he joined the show to help educate Orthodox teens. “There are a lot of people [for whom] this lifestyle is not a choice, and they would die to leave,” he said. “We’re married off at 17 or 18 before we even know what we want.”
Castmate number three, 26-year-old Luzer Twersky, grew up in the Belz and Satmar sects in Borough Park, Brooklyn; he married after his first date at the age of 19. Twersky, who now works in fashion, told the Post his experience moving away from the ultra-Orthodox world was like “living in a one-room basement apartment your whole life, and then being thrust into Grand Central Terminal at rush hour.”
According to the Post, Twersky’s three biggest secular discoveries were 1977’s “Star Wars,” which he saw for the first time last year; bacon (“When I had the first bite, I felt angry. How could my parents keep this from me?”); and his blonde, Irish-Catholic girlfriend (“She’s as shiksa as they come… F—king awesome!”).
Noah Scheinmann, an executive producer at No Regrets Entertainment, said the company is now shopping “Shunned” to the networks, and is searching for a fourth cast member leaving the faith.
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