Discover this powerful story of a woman who reconciled the complexities of her Jewish faith with unconventional life choices, survived an abusive marriage, and reclaimed her life on her own terms. Alla Kaplan, a writer, podcaster, and host of “The Jewish Stripper: Raw and Real,” joins the conversation to share her journey as a legacy breaker, opening up about her communist Russian childhood, surviving domestic abuse in an abusive marriage, and confronting her battle with bipolar disorder and substance abuse. Alla shares the remarkable strength it took to break free from cycles of self-destructive behavior, demonstrating how she turned pain into purpose to inspire and empower others seeking their own path to freedom.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Immigrating from communist Russia in the 70s to the United States as a child, the culture shock of American life, and the struggle to find her Jewish identity.
- The lack of exposure to healthy relationships in childhood, leading to an unconscious attraction to and marriage with an abusive, narcissistic man.
- How an abusive partner can “groom” someone into stripping, and the internal struggle and body comparison within the strip club environment.
- The profound turning point to leave the abusive marriage after a life-threatening physical assault, which stripped away fear and necessitated a choice for survival.
- The path of self-medication with drugs and alcohol, having a nervous breakdown, seeking therapy, and receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
- The vital realization of needing to break free from codependent relationships to discover a sense of self-worth and identity: “Who am I by myself? Or that I’m enough by myself.”
- Candid discussion on the heavy stigma and misconceptions surrounding the stripping industry, and the decision to live authentically in her truth, regardless of judgment.
- The personal reconciliation of Jewish faith and a past life as a stripper, asserting that one’s faith and identity are separate from their profession.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS ALLA:
- You immigrated to the United States as a child. How did that shape your early experiences and your identity?
- How old were you when you married, and how did you recognize that you were experiencing narcissistic abuse when you had no experience to identify with?
- What was your turning point in deciding to leave your marriage?
- What led you to work as a stripper while in your abusive marriage and adopt the persona “The Jewish stripper?”
- Why do you think stripping still carries such a heavy stigma, and what are misconceptions we have about the industry?
- In what ways did talk therapy and medications for bipolar disorder help you rebuild your sense of self-worth, and heal from past trauma?
- What do you wish more people understood about bipolar disorder?
- How have you reconciled your Jewish faith with these unconventional choices you’ve made in your life? Can a stripper still believe in God?
- Part of your recovery involved re-defining yourself beyond “the Jewish stripper.” What inspired you to launch your podcast and call it “The Jewish Stripper, Raw and Real with Alla Kaplan?
- How do you handle the judgment and criticism received from people who do not understand your journey?
- How is healing about honoring, not hiding?
- How are the simple things in life, gratitude and knowing you are helping people bringing you joy?
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Stripping, Judaism, and Survival Inside an Abusive Marriage
Introduction: The Jewish Stripper, Writer, and Truth-Teller
I hope this message finds each of you so very well. I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing Alla Kaplan, writer, podcaster, truth-teller, and Jewish stripper, who is joining me from Columbia, Maryland. Born in Russia and raised in the United States, Alla’s life has been anything but ordinary. She has survived domestic abuse, confronted the realities of living with bipolar disorder, and worked as a stripper while trapped in an abusive marriage. From those chapters, scarred by trauma yet defined by resilience, emerged a voice of empowerment.
That voice now resonates through her podcast, The Jewish Stripper, Raw and Real, a platform celebrated for its fearless conversations that dismantle judgment, reclaim dignity, and amplify stories too often silenced. What makes Alla’s work so powerful is the way she reconciles two worlds many believe cannot coexist: her Jewish faith and her past as a stripper. By sharing her story openly, she inspires others to step into theirs without shame and without apology.
I’m looking forward to talking with Alla about the path that led her into stripping, the battles she faced with mental health and substance abuse, and the remarkable strength it took to break free from cycles of self-destructive behavior. Our conversation will also explore how she reshaped her life, turning pain into purpose, and how she now uses her story to inspire and empower those who feel stuck in addiction or unhealthy environments, and so much more. This conversation will surely offer hope and strength to anyone seeking their own path to freedom.
Alla, a heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
It is my pleasure.
I have been looking forward to it for a while.
This is going to be a wonderful conversation.
Thank you for the glowing introduction.
From Russia to the US: Identity and Generational Trauma
You’re welcome. You’re welcome to use it, but it’s you. I like doing this because I want everyone to know about you and respect your journey. They’re going to learn so much now from this interview because you are a legacy breaker. You are an iconoclast to me. You have been through so much. You’ve been your own person. You’ve done your healing. You have such wisdom to share with us. I’m looking forward to this. You have information about a world the rest of us are not familiar with. It’s fascinating to me. Let’s start with how Alla came to be. You immigrated to the United States as a child. How did that shape your early experiences and your identity?
My parents were already divorced in Russia when I was a small child. My father did a lot of nasty things to my mom and her family, as far as I was concerned. He wasn’t much of a father. My mom met my father when she was eighteen years old, the first time she got knocked up.
What did she know?
I guess you could call it a shotgun wedding. I didn’t know about my Jewish identity. When you’re a kid, and it was the ‘70s in communist Russia, being Jewish or any religion at all was frowned upon because it was an atheist communist country. The only thing that mattered was communism. Oddly, they moved Christmas to make it a New Year holiday. We had a tree. We had presents. We had all that stuff. I thought that it was New Year’s. That’s what everybody did. They did that to appease the Christian community. When we came to the United States, just my mom and I from Russia, my mom was trying to get as far away as she could from my father.
By the way, that’s probably how your early courage began because it was so courageous of your mother to do that.
My mom became a single mom. I was raised with my grandmother and my mother. My grandfather, my mother’s father, died very early on. She was young. He had a heart attack right in front of her. That was trauma for her. My grandmother and my mom were my influences. My grandmother was a strong woman, physically and mentally, and not the warmest person either. She was emotionally unavailable.
She was emotionally stunted, also.
Don’t get me wrong. I know she loved me to pieces. The whole history of how my grandmother came to be with my grandfather is very crazy, too. There’s a lot of generational trauma. Once we came to the United States, it was just my mom and me. My mom went to work for a company, which she still works for. This is from 1980. She’s still there. She will be there for 46 years in March. I became pretty much a latchkey kid. I was ten years old. I turned ten a month after we came to the United States. I didn’t know anything about being Jewish that much. I was sent to Hebrew school. That’s where I started to learn about Judaism. It was a culture shock because during the day at Hebrew school, when it was time for prayer, the boys and the girls were separated.
For those who are Christian and tuning into this, in the Jewish religion, the very religious Jewish people separate the women from the men in prayer and in many other ways.
The women are not allowed to pray with the men. In any case, that was a culture shock. It was everything. America was a culture shock. I knew nothing about music, but my mom was raising me in Russia on classical music. She loves ballet and classical music. That’s pretty much all I heard in my home. She had records for me of ballets that played the music and told the story. I knew ballets like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake by the time I was five or six years old.
I came to the United States, and pop music was a culture shock for me. When we were on the school bus, and the bus driver would play the radio, I started to get into pop music. All we wanted to do was dance to pop music. I had a friend who was a year older than me. I would come over to her house after school. She was like the Paula Abdul of our neighborhood.
By the way, later on, that probably came in handy for you as we get into your story.
My mom was a fan of ballet. I watched ballets when I was a kid, too. My friend liked to choreograph dances in her living room. She would turn on Diana Ross, “Upside Down You’re turning me,” or whatever was on the radio. We were like regular American kids making mixtapes off the radio. That’s the only way you could make a mixtape, or at that point, it was still vinyl. We were buying vinyl records.
I remember.
I’m older than I look.
So am I.
This is me when I’m eleven or twelve years old, hanging out with the neighborhood kids. We were in the class with the Hebrew school, kids from 6 to 16. Our poor teacher had to deal with everybody, regardless of their education level or math level. There was a language barrier because he was speaking to us in English, trying to teach us Hebrew. It was insanity.
The Unhealthy Cycle: From Latchkey Kid to an Abusive Partner
Also, from your childhood, you didn’t have a lot of exposure to healthy marriages, to healthy relationships, and to what a healthy man is. The men in your life were nothing in the way of a role model in any way.
I didn’t have men in my life.
You didn’t have a male role model. You didn’t even have a relationship role model. How do you know that you married an abusive guy, like your father, in a way, maybe worse?
He was abusive to my mom. I didn’t grow up with him, and I still married someone exactly like him.
How old were you when you got married? You knew absolutely nothing, but you’re in your marriage and not being treated well. How did you recognize that you were experiencing narcissistic abuse when you had no experience to identify it?
I didn’t even know the word narcissistic. I didn’t even know what I was going through and dealing with at that time. This is the mid to late ‘90s. I was 24 when we got married. It was February of 1994. I was with him for a couple of years before.
What did you know?
I have to honestly say that I was obsessed with this man. I think that I was obsessed because I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I had relationships before him. Either they were obsessed with me, or I was obsessed with them. There were never any healthy boundaries. It was just craziness. I got into drugs before stripping and all that kind of stuff. When I was a teenager, I started smoking and drinking. I would hang out when I was fourteen years old with my best friend, who was Greek. They were Orthodox Greek, not super religious, but I would come over to her family’s house for Sunday dinners.
I was obsessed because I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Share on X
I don’t know how a little Jewish girl got into it with the Greeks because I even went to church with them a couple of times. I remember smelling the incense and thinking the smell was gross. I don’t know how we became best friends because I was a little Jewish girl. It was almost like they adopted me. My mom was happy I had friends, but she was emotionally unavailable at the time because everything was new for her, too. She was trying to assimilate.
She was overwhelmed.
She was a young mom. She was a single mother. She didn’t have help now, as she did with my grandmother in Russia. I was left on my own a lot. I used to watch soap operas. I learned a lot of English. Even though my mom was an English teacher in Russia, I learned most of my English by watching American TV. The first year that we were there, I went away to a summer camp, Kauffman Camp. There are a lot of people in the Maryland, Virginia area. The Kauffman Camp was very famous.
I was there for about two weeks. It was a total of a month. It was Parents’ Visiting Day, and my mom was late. Somebody was driving her, and they were late. I was crying. My mom forgot about me. Everybody’s parents are here, and nobody’s here for me. My mom said when they got there, and I came at her, bawling and speaking English, “I don’t know who this child was,” because all this English poured out of me. I was learning English at the camp, too.
Meeting the Partner and the Path to Abuse
You were caught between two worlds. How did you meet your husband?
We worked together in an office. He was very handsome. I don’t want to say like Denzel Washington, but there’s some resemblance. He was extremely handsome and charming. I did date some Black men before him. It wasn’t like the first thing. My family was not happy about it. He was dating everybody. I didn’t know he was dating a whole bunch of women. I had that thing that if they were abusive, toxic, or narcissistic, I didn’t know these things, but I was going to be the special one who changed him. I was going to get him to change.
That was before you learned that the only way you could change is if you make the decision. You can’t do it for someone else.
What happened was that he changed me. I was so obsessed that I was willing to do anything to get him to love me. Is it pathetic? Yes, it was pathetic, but you’re in your early 20s. You’re coming out of the teenage hood. I didn’t go to college. I quit high school three months before graduation. It’s very stupid of me. I went back not to GED, but to get my credits in the classes that I needed to get a diploma later on when I was nineteen years old.
This was all before I met him, but I had a boyfriend at one point who was obsessed with me. We had to go to court because he had broken into our house. He ripped up some of my clothes. I had gone shopping. He had been following me and watching me. The judge had to tell him, “If you see her walking down the street, you walk in the opposite direction.” We had to get a peace order. It was crazy from the get-go.
The foundation under your feet was so unsteady. Since he turned you around, how did you recognize your husband was giving you such abuse and that it was abuse? What was your turning point in deciding to leave?
I had been stripping for a couple of years.
What got you into that?
Groomed for the Industry: The Start of Stripping
He went into strip clubs, and I would go along with him. I wanted to be what I thought he wanted. Honestly, I have to say I was very jealous, but at the same time fascinated because he was fascinated with it. I wanted to know what the fascination was. At that point, I wanted to make myself whatever it was that I thought he wanted to.
You didn’t know who you were yet, so you might as well turn yourself into what he wanted.
I didn’t know about the money you could make, but I was watching the people giving the girls lots of money for not standing there naked, but dancing and being naked. At first, I was very embarrassed to look at other women naked. I have to honestly say I was critical of their bodies because what women do is compare each other. The way that our society functions is to have women in constant competition with each other. He would talk about this one having great ass, great breasts, or great legs. I would then be in my head, comparing myself.
The way our society functions is to have women in constant competition with each other. Share on X
You were worrying about your stuff.
I’m not thin enough. I’m not good enough. I’m too thick. My legs and ass were very thick. I was sitting there. I didn’t think the dancers could have cellulite. I saw a girl. She was gorgeous. She had a little cellulite. I said, “She had cellulite.” She heard me, and she went off. He was rushing me out of the club because there was going to be a fight. I didn’t think that women who were doing this job were even allowed to have that.
You thought they had to be perfect.
They had to be perfect from top to bottom. It turned out no, you don’t have to be absolutely 110% perfect.
Maybe your imperfection is going to turn someone on.
I’ve seen all kinds of shapes and sizes. Everybody has a fetish, or they have a preference. There are people who are partial to blondes, brunettes, big breasts, small breasts, anything and everything in between races, Black or White. I was fascinated with it. He made me think that it was my idea. He kept going in there and taking me with him. As I said in another interview, I didn’t know that I was being groomed for it. I was still this little Jewish girl who didn’t know anything about the real world. All of a sudden, I was in the underbelly of society. It’s like being thrown to the wolves. I said one day, “I’ll go and audition.”
Was this while you were still with him?
This was before we were married. We were living together. Maybe we were living together for about a year. We were still in the DC Baltimore area. I went and auditioned. I was very nervous because I’m being judged from head to toe, but I love to dance. A big part of it is that I love to dance. I made, in ten minutes, $40 or $50, or maybe something like that. We’re talking about the ‘90s. If it’s minimum wage, I may be making at that time, $11 or $12 an hour, where I just made $20 or $40 in ten minutes. That was a motivation.
You’re doing this, and then the two of you got married?
Yes. His grandmother said something to him about living in sin because we were living together. You need to either marry this girl or you’re going to be living in sin. It wasn’t a romantic proposal. What actually happened was he had some troubles with the law, with DUIs, and stuff. He had given his brother’s name when he was stopped during a sobriety check. He didn’t want to give his name. He gave his brother’s name. There was a thing attached to the DUI.
He wanted to look like he was more responsible. That’s why he wanted to get married, to show that he was being more of a responsible person. There was physical abuse during this time. The physical abuse started before we got married, but I thought that I would change him, that if we were married, then it would get better, but it got worse. Once we got married, I was a possession. I possess you so I can do whatever I want to you. At that time, the abuse got worse.
The Breaking Point & Escape from Domestic Abuse
What was the turning point? When did you decide to leave?
We had lived in San Francisco and California for about six months, and then we went to Hawaii. He was selling me this dream, “If we go to Hawaii, it’s so beautiful there. We can raise our children there.” It was a dream that I bought into. We moved there. We went there. He was already doing drugs. We did drugs together since the start, but I wasn’t as much into drugs as he was. I felt like I had to be a lot of the time, the responsible one. I would try not to do as much. He was out of control with the drugs and drinking all the time.
He was pretty much taking all my money and not paying the rent and things like that. His sister and her girlfriend came to visit us. My mom came out to visit us, too, before that. I wanted to cry out to her, but I didn’t want to admit that my marriage was a failure. His sister and her girlfriend were out to visit us. She asked me, “Are you happy?” If he asked me if I was happy, I was afraid to say no. She asked me if I was happy.
She must have known her brother.
I didn’t say anything. I knew that he was cheating. He was with other women. I found a condom under the bed, and I said, “What is this? There’s a condom under the bed.” He said, “It must be yours.” A typical narcissist would turn it around on you. That started with the sister coming, asking me if I was happy, and then finding the condom under the bed. It was around three years that we were together at that point. What happened was I said to him, “I think that you need to go get anger management, or I’m going to leave.” At that point, I stopped caring if I got hurt physically because I was tired of living a lie. Nobody knew in my family.
You also lived with a lot of fear.
Everybody thought he was this great, wonderful guy. He has a charismatic persona. When people are very good-looking, it’s also difficult for people to believe. For some reason, they assume that if someone is a beautiful person on the outside, they must be beautiful on the inside. I told my boss at the strip club, the owner, that he was abusive, that I wanted to leave him. She was like, “He’s such a nice guy.” The turning point was when he hit me on the head with a Mag flashlight.
People assume that if someone is a beautiful person on the outside, they must be beautiful on the inside. Share on X
He came home, and he passed out. It wasn’t maybe the best time to say, “I don’t like this. I can’t live like this anymore.” He got up, went under the bed, took out this Mag flashlight, like the cops used, the big one, and hit me on the back of the head. I can always feel it. I can tell you where the stitches were. I lost consciousness and woke up in my own blood.
You can’t get to the hospital.
I went to the front desk. It was an apartment hotel kind of place we were staying in. I said to the married couple that managed the hotel, “I need an ambulance. I need you to call 911 and have him arrested.” That was the first time.
That was big for you to do that.
I lost any fear that I had.
You were still bleeding.
I was bleeding out of my head. Before that, I was having dreams that I was throwing him off a cliff into the water. I started to realize that one of us is going to die. I don’t want it to be me. I don’t want to kill anyone either. I started thinking about killing him. That was a time to go.
Where did you go?
I told the girl that I worked with what happened. I told the owner of the club where I was working, and she couldn’t believe me. She thought he was the most wonderful guy. I told this girl, the dancer who worked there. Her boyfriend was a waiter at the club. I swear that they’re guardian angels because they took me to their apartment with all my stuff. I went to a different hotel, but I was afraid he was going to find me there. So much was mixed up that it was like a long, drawn-out dream, a nightmare. They got me a ticket to go home. Maybe they traveled a lot to Colorado, where her family was, and so they had frequent flyer miles. I think they used their frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket to go home to Maryland.
It was a lovely, beautiful gesture.
I was going to go home to my mom, but I did not want to admit to my mom because I always crawled back to my mom. I had a boyfriend, and it failed. I was living with him. I came back to her. I didn’t want to admit. When I got back to DC, I was at Dulles Airport, and I had every intention to call my mom, but then I decided to get on a train and go to Connecticut to work at a club where I used to work in Connecticut. I thought, “He wouldn’t follow me. He wouldn’t care enough to follow me to Connecticut,” because we were there together at some point. I was working, and he was taking all the money.
The Jewish Stripper: Name, Identity, and Stigma
How did you come to be called the Jewish stripper when you went to Connecticut?
I didn’t call myself the Jewish stripper until about a little bit over a year ago. It was during the height of COVID. I didn’t have a job. COVID was crazy. There was no contact. I was sitting at home. This book was in me. I wanted to write this stuff down for a long time. I decided, “I have nothing to do. It’s COVID.” I started writing the book. I decided, “I’m going to put all this on paper.” I called the book, The Life of a Jewish Stripper: A Memoir. Everything poured out of me from my childhood. I started with the past and tried to keep it chronological.
When I started the podcast, I called it Raw and Real at first. That was my friend’s idea. She was supposed to do the podcast with me, but she dropped out after one episode. I wish her well. She wants to do her own thing. When she was reading my book, because I was sending her chapters when I was writing the book to read, she said, “This is so raw.” Raw and Real was born. I googled “Raw and Real,” and there were 1,000 Raw and Reals. I said, “Back to the drawing board. This has to stand out somehow.” I decided, “I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m going to be The Jewish Stripper, Raw and Real.”
It certainly gets attention. Before I get into how you also navigated the challenges of depression and anxiety, because there’s an emotional toll to working in the adult entertainment industry, why do you think stripping still carries such a heavy stigma? Are there misconceptions we have about the industry?
Yes. Number one is that people assume that all strippers have sex. I’m not going to say that no one doesn’t because some people do. That’s their choice. I don’t judge them, as I’ve said in my podcast. People assume that if you’re getting naked for money, then you must also be having sex for money, or you’re a gold digger. You’re waiting for someone to snatch them, marry them, and get their money. That’s the number one assumption. The culture has changed so much in 30 years, where you’ve got singers and dancers who started emulating the dancing move.
It is the exotic strip dancing.
It was okay for Demi Moore to get naked for money in a movie. It’s okay for Jennifer Lopez to play a stripper. There was a movie. I cannot remember the name of it. I don’t know why, because I’ve seen it, but it got an Oscar for the best movie. It was about a guy falling in love with a stripper in one night, a Russian guy. What people do now on stage, when they’re dancing, it’s not even life imitating art. It’s life imitating life.
How do you handle the judgment and criticism that you get from people who don’t understand your journey? There have to be tons. What do you do on the inside to counteract what’s coming at you from the outside?
I know myself. I know who I am. I stand in my truth. That’s what I used to do. It does change you. It does make you look at the world differently. I’m not saying that I have all the answers, but it gave me a lot of insight into human nature. There was a website that you can hook up with to advertise your podcast, and then they do advertising on your podcast. They turned me down because of the name of the podcast. I said, “That’s not meant to be.” I just say that what’s meant to be will come to me. It’s a little bit of a repressed society. You don’t want to do business with The Jewish Stripper because of the name. That’s your choice.
You’re making a very spiritual choice. You’re living in your truth.
I would rather be open about what I used to do, instead of someone saying one day, “I heard through the grapevine.” I’m like, “Here I am. I’m an open book.”
I love the fact that you’re teaching us about this world and helping us not to be judgmental because you have people coming to it for all different reasons.
During the time that I was stripping, when I was in my marriage, I was not happy. Even though I enjoyed my job, the situation that I was in emotionally made me hate the world that I was in. I was using drugs and alcohol to numb my pain. At the same time, I was feeling empowered because I had taken my power back. It took me a couple of times. I went back to him a couple of times.
It took a couple of times, but when he went to smack me across the face, I wouldn’t have it anymore. That was it. That was done. Even though I went back, it was always, “I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.” I didn’t believe it anymore. Even though I was self-medicating, and this was before I got into therapy, I was feeling like I took my power back. I could take care of myself. I was a person on my own. I didn’t need someone to define me anymore.
Finding Self-Worth: Sobriety and the Start of Therapy
At what point in your experience did you start getting into therapy? Did that help you withdraw from the drugs and alcohol as your coping mechanism?
I have to be honest. I moved to the New York area in Westchester with a man. I had another relationship. I was around 30 years old. I had stopped dancing, and he was in AA. I was one of those people who, if my significant other was doing something, I should be doing that, too. I was asking him about AA. He was like, “That’s a personal decision that you’re going to have to make. I can’t tell you if you are or you’re not an alcoholic.” I got into AA. I started going to meetings. The more I went to the meetings, the more I started to realize that I need to stop getting myself into these relationships where I feel like I have to take on their persona or that I have to do what they’re doing. I need to start being my own person.
Did you know who your own person was?
I realized I need to figure out who I am by myself, or that I’m enough by myself.
That’s when you started therapy?
I started around that time. I had a nervous breakdown, and I started therapy. I was in the hospital, and then I was referred.
Are you still with this other guy?
I was, and then I moved out.
What a life you’ve had. It’s been hard.
I moved out. I stayed up in New York in the Westchester, Putnam area. I continued therapy. I started on medications. That’s when I started learning about bipolar disorder and depression.
You had not identified before that you had bipolar disorder.
It was at one point when I lived in Maryland. I had a nervous breakdown. I was supposed to start going to therapy, but I was not ready. After I got out of the hospital, I was one of those people saying, “I’m not crazy. I don’t need this.”
Meanwhile, you’re doing all this stuff. You have this breakdown. They’re giving you other kinds of drugs to calm you down.
Yes, like Haldol in the hospital and all that crazy stuff. I had stopped when I was 30 or 29. It’s a crazy ride with me because it was guy after guy after guy. This guy was like, “Why are you still dancing? Why are you still with this guy?” It was a matter of my having to learn to stand on my own two feet without a man and to seek within. Who am I? What do I want, not what he wants? What do I want for myself?
It was just a matter of me having to learn to stand on my own two feet without a man, and to seek within: Who am I? And what do I want? Not what he wants. Share on X
In a way, you remind me of, but it’s a little different, when I was widowed. I had a car accident. It was so sudden and all. I started going to a life transition coach to learn how to be alone. That’s similar to what you did in other circumstances. I did not know. I was so immersed and in love with my life, with my husband, being married, with that protection, and all of that that came with it. All of a sudden, I felt naked. I had to learn how to be okay as I read.
Living with Bipolar Disorder: Challenging the Misconception
That’s when, in certain ways, I’ve discovered more about myself, leading to what I’m doing now than I knew before. It feels like, even though there were different inspirations for it, we both had the same experience. You are starting to surround yourself with healthier influences. You’re going to therapy. You’re learning a lot. Is there something you would wish more people to understand about bipolar disorder?
It’s a stigma if someone is bipolar. They’re constantly on a high or constantly on a low. They used to call it manic depressive, and then they called it bipolar. There’s an assumption that there’s always drama with the person. What I learned is that when it’s peaceful, and you’re on a medium, you’re not feeling up or down. You’re constant. You have to get used to a routine. What people assume with bipolar is the word crazy. Using the word crazy for any type of mental illness is a misconception that the person must be crazy. There’s always going to be something bad associated with that.
That’s a misconception because there are periods when everything’s fine, and then they can flip into one or the other, like the high or the low.
I know people who depend on marijuana. That’s their answer to everything. I believe in medication. For me, that’s what works.
You got medication for the bipolar part of you?
Yes.
You’re getting pulled away from the alcohol and from the other substances you’re taking.
I left AA after a while. I’m not going to say anything against it, but it wasn’t for me after a while. I realized that I had to stop following this guy into this place. I can have a glass of wine or a beer and not go crazy. I know that I was doing a lot of drugs and drinking, even before I was in the stripping world, when I was a teenager. That’s what teenagers do. They experiment. I got into drugs and alcohol early. By the time I got to stripping, I had already experimented with stuff. In AA, they believe that it’s the group that’s keeping the person sober. For me, in particular, speaking for myself, I’m not saying that it’s all me, but if you quit drugs or alcohol, there has to be a part of you that wants that. You yourself care about yourself enough to stop. You want to get better.
If you quit drugs or alcohol, there has to be a part of you that wants that—that you care about yourself enough to stop and want to get better. Share on X
You’re sensing that there’s something more that you can get better at. You’re reaching for that star in a way. I experienced it, too.
I experienced a lot of negativity in the sobriety world. I said to myself, “I already have in my own family.”
You’ve seen it from both sides now.
I have so much dysfunction in my own family. When somebody is bringing more dysfunction to your life in sobriety, I was like, “This is not working for me.”
Not only that. You already had the nervous breakdown. You need a few more problems to add to that?
I had quit drinking and drugs on my own before getting to AA. It’s a choice. It’s your choice.
It is always a choice.
Everything that you’re doing is your choice.
Faith and Freedom: Reconciling Judaism and Unconventional Choices
Let me ask you something else. I’m sure you get judgment about this. How have you reconciled your Jewish faith with these unconventional choices you made in your life? Do you ever get asked if a stripper can still believe in God?
I wrote a chapter on that. I put that episode out there, my relationship with God. I said, at one point, it was a love-hate relationship because of when you’re praying for something, and you get it, and then why don’t prayers get answered? Does God love everyone, strippers, and even, excuse me for the word, whores? Are we all God’s children? I can’t separate my Jewishness. That’s my identity. I identify as Jewish unapologetically. I am not going to apologize for being Jewish or being a Zionist. Whether I’m a stripper or if I went and got a job as a barista at Starbucks, I’m Jewish no matter what I do.
Is that what inspired you to launch your podcast and call it The Jewish Stripper?
Yes. Someone very Christian from another country asked me, “Why do you use the logo of the stripper and the name The Stripper?” I said, “First of all, you’re judging the book by its cover.” That’s one of the things that I wanted to put out there. So what if someone is a stripper? I’ve said that I’ve worked with women who were studying for a PhD or a law degree.
They’re stripping to make money while they’re doing this.
They’re stripping to pay for what they’re going to do in the future, in their life. I work with people who are there for the cash. Lady Gaga was a stripper. The rapper, Cardi B, was a stripper. There are so many. I was looking at the list. Brad Pitt was at one point a stripper. What makes someone a stripper is that they’re taking off their clothes for money. First of all, the human body was made by God. If someone wants to go and admire it, but they pay for it, no one is holding a gun to their head to walk into the strip club and give someone money to look at.
Everybody loves to look at beautiful things. The human body is a beautiful thing. I don’t think there’s any shame in it. There should be no shame because, like I was saying earlier, with what people are doing now, when they’re dancing on stage, they’re almost simulating sex on stage with singers and dancers. What’s the difference? How is that more respectable? It’s because someone is actually a dancer in a show. They’re a backup dancer. They’re gyrating. We can go all the way back to Elvis Presley, gyrating on stage.
Women were screaming.
Tom Jones, people were throwing their panties at him. There’s no shame in it. What’s the big deal? A name is just a name, but at the same time, it makes you curious. I worked in the Baltimore area with a few women who were also Jewish. We had a club where the owner bought the club. The guy was Jewish. His wife worked there as a stripper. Her mother came in with outfits for the girls. It was a family affair.
It was also a business. You started a podcast, which is part of seeing yourself as a businesswoman, a creator, and a mentor, instead of still living in the past of where you were. When did you start your podcast?
August of ‘24. I’m still working on uploading the audio from those episodes onto my RSS feed. I started season one. I decided right before the new year to cut it off and then make season two. I have started season three. It was hard for me to keep track of all the episodes.
I know because it’s my journey also. It’s fascinating because you went into the business side with your podcast and all that.
I would like to monetize it. There are advertisers. I’m also earning something. I don’t have guests. I’ll just pick a topic. I’ll sit there for 30 minutes and talk about the topic. My topic started with narcissists, the abuse, leaving, being brave enough to escape from abuse, and things like that. October 7th happened. I said, “I have a platform. I’m going to talk about this because, honestly, I couldn’t function and not talk about it.” I lost some subscribers on YouTube because of that. I said, “I’m going to try and go back to my original. I’m not going to do a podcast every week about it.” I had it weekly. “I’m not going to do it every time about October 7th,” but it was difficult.
It sounds like you were split into two desires. I’m wondering, not to be answered now, if it might be interesting for you to start interviewing some strippers for people to understand what happens to people or what pulls them into that business, especially those who go on to get college educations and do different things with their lives. That would be very interesting.
I thought about going out and interviewing, or even putting an advertisement on Craigslist. I’ve said in my podcast, “If you’re a dancer, an ex-dancer, ex stripper, or currently dancing, I would be very interested to have you on my show.” I’m going to have to go out into clubs and ask girls, the ladies, if they would be interested in being interviewed. If they want to be anonymous, we can do just a voice recording.
Tell their stories, like I’m interviewing you. It’s very interesting and healing for people to understand this.
A lot of people have a friend or a best friend who got into it. It’s not necessarily from an abusive side.
It’s important for people to know, too.
Somebody said to me, “Instead of stripping, why can’t the person be a waitress or a bartender?” I’m like, “They are at the club, too. That’s their choice. They felt they would make more money as dancers. That’s their choice. Don’t judge just because someone is getting naked.” You go to the beach. People are already practically naked. People are looking at their bodies.
Podcast Future, Self-Care, and Purpose
Let’s talk about healing because you’re in recovery. Are you still in therapy?
Yes.
You’re still working on yourself.
The medications have to be monitored. I have to do the talk therapy. I only see my therapist about once a month. Ever since COVID, it’s by Zoom.
That’s okay. You’re still talking about your stuff, learning, and growing.
There are things that I can tell my therapist that I can’t say to anyone else. I’m going through stuff with my mom, where she may have dementia. I don’t know. We’re going to have her tested. The appointment is coming up in February. It’s hard to get an appointment. When she had breast cancer, I had to be the strong one for her. She had two surgeries to take it out. There are certain things that I can’t say to anyone else.
That requires that you stay on top of things with vigilance and you keep taking care of yourself, which the fact that you’re doing all these things for yourself is self-care. It’s not like I’m going to go to therapy one or two times and it’s done or anything like that.
I’ve been in it for years. I don’t see myself stopping because I don’t feel like it’s fair to vent to a friend, to put all my stuff in them. The therapist’s job is to listen, but they might also give advice.
It is to steer you in certain ways or give you choices that you haven’t thought about before. Let me ask you. You say that healing is not hiding. It’s honoring. It’s saying, “This is who I am. I am whole.” What would you like to tell our audience about why they should go through their own healing journeys and why it’s worth it?
The therapist's job is to listen, but also they might give advice in certain ways or give you choices that you haven't thought about before. Share on X
It’s a lot of work to go within. I journaled. After I journaled, I started writing my book. I didn’t realize when I started writing my book that maybe I’m writing it to help other people. Down the road, when I was writing about all the stuff that’s happened to me, I realized my intention. What is my intention? Why am I doing this? Is it selfish? Am I writing this book to vent everything, to get it out of my system?
That helps, too.
It was cathartic. Down the road, I thought, “What is my purpose?” I started to think about the trajectory of my life. I have a chapter on that. What is the trajectory of my life? What does God want for me?
What is the legacy you’re going to be leaving?
I don’t have kids. I want to leave a legacy that I did something good in this world. Yes, I would love to get my book published and make lots of money. The bottom line is, if I had people respond. When I posted my chapters on Medium.com, I had a girl respond that she was also a dancer and what she was going through with her boyfriend. It made me realize that I am helping someone. I helped one person. If I help that person, there are other people out there who it’s going to help.
The Simple Things: Gratitude, Joy, and Present Moments
That’s my story. Look at all the people this show is helping. I feel like by tuning in to this interview with you, there’ll be more people who are open to acceptance, nonjudgment, and understanding that everyone has their own journey. There’s not one part of it that’s better than another. We’re part of a collective. We all have our gifts. We all have our journeys. We all have our lessons to learn. That brings me to my question for you, of all people. How are the simple things in life, gratitude, and knowing you are now beginning to help people, bringing you joy? With all things you go through, are you able to still enjoy, have joy, and enjoy your present moments? How has that changed for you? You didn’t have it earlier in your life.
The absolute simplest things, like when it’s cold outside, and you have a home. You have a roof over your head. You have heat. You have hot water. You’re not homeless. You have food in your house. If you ate today, you were a lucky person because millions of people around the world don’t know where their next meal is coming from. That’s simple gratitude. I get joy from my dog. Being with my dog gives me joy.
I get joy from doing something like this, not because I want attention or I want to get famous. Doing this podcast that I started and doing this interview is giving me joy to share my story with you to help other people. It gives me joy, not to put them back in their trauma, but to make people understand that you have to deal with your trauma to come out the other side of it.
Heal it as best you can to drop it, and that enables you to feel joy even more.
Don’t forget. Also, forgive even the worst things that have been done. I may repeat my story because people interview me. I tell the story, but I’m not living in it anymore. I’ve also forgiven the person. We don’t have to have a relationship. I can love you in my own way, but from far away.
Let it go. I call it detaching with love. As you say there, I’m not concerned by hating you or whatever. I’m sending you love, but stay over there.
I’ve forgiven you, but that doesn’t mean that I forgot.
I will still protect myself.
Also, forgiving yourself is probably one of the most important things, especially in resilience. It is forgiving yourself for everything. I wasn’t there for my mom when my grandmother had cancer. For a long time, I could not forgive myself for that. I thought that I deserved the abuse that I was getting as punishment for that. It took me a long time.
The Power of Self-Forgiveness in Resilience
How did you process that? How did you come through to the other end of that? A lot of people would love to know that. There is someth
The Power of Self-Forgiveness in Resilience
ing called self-love. How can we love others if we don’t love ourselves?
It’s a big thing that my mom forgives me. She was losing her mother, and I was in my own world. I was with this guy, being abused. I was dancing. She didn’t even know what was going on in my life at the time. It was before I was dancing. I was into drugs and alcohol. I didn’t want to leave this guy for two seconds because I thought that as soon as I’m out the door, he’s with someone else. That’s why I wasn’t there. It took me a long time to forgive myself to say, “I can’t change it. I can’t change the past. I can’t live in it. If I can’t change the past, I can’t live in it either. I have to forgive myself to move on.”
It’s very wise.
Thank you. I don’t always feel wise.
That’s very wise. You’ll forgive yourself when you don’t feel wise.
Once you forgive yourself, you can also forgive other people. You can detach. You can forgive people. If you’re in a healing journey, you recognize your patterns. You recognize abusive people, or you recognize people, even in a friendship, if they’re not showing up for you.
Once you can forgive yourself, you can also forgive other people. Share on X
Isn’t it Oprah’s famous quote? “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Some people can show you most of their personalities, like your ex being very lovely and charming, but there’s that other piece, and that’s there. Believe them.
It’s there from the start, but you might be making excuses for them, or you’re willing, for whatever your own reasons, to put up with the behavior. Once you’re starting to heal, you won’t tolerate because that’s self-care. You understand that how someone treats you is how they see you treating yourself that way. You have to love yourself before anyone can love you. You cannot seek love from other people. No one can make you happy. You have to make yourself happy first.
That is very wise, Alla. When they pulled me out of the car, and I got the message, “Be loving and kind to everyone,” I knew right away that meant to me, which I didn’t do. I was a people pleaser. It changed my whole life. I did, like you, anything to earn. I could walk into a room and see everybody in that room where they were. I could play for each one. That was my way of surviving. I don’t do that anymore. I can walk into a room now and say, “You’re here.” I can like you, choose to detach, or whatever, but I don’t walk in with all this judgment. People are who they are. It’s also about allowing each other to be human. Did we come here to be perfect?
We all make mistakes, but you see the same patterns in someone, the behavior repeated over and over. You guys are not vibrating on the same frequency. I’ve learned, for instance, in friendships, if there’s no reciprocity, if I’m always the one reaching out and the person’s not reaching out to me, checking on me, then I’m not getting what I need out of that. That relationship is not working for me.
It’s a one-way street.
I can’t always be the one reaching out. With that, I have to detach.
I want to ask you one more question. Do people ask you why you’re helping broken people? Do they assume that all strippers are broken people?
I’m glad you brought that up because someone said that I’m helping broken people. I asked them why they assume that just because they’re strippers, they must be broken people. You’re being judgmental. I don’t consider myself broken.
You had some broken pieces, but you’ve healed them.
I’ve healed, and I’m still healing. I know women who I worked with who were not from broken homes, whose parents were together for 30 to 40 years. No broken people there. Don’t assume that someone is broken because, again, people are just being smart by making fast cash. They decided that this was a way to put themselves through school. Don’t judge the book by its cover. Just because someone is a stripper doesn’t mean that they’re somehow broken. For all you know, when you don’t see them outside the club, they might be studying nursing. They’re studying healing. I knew someone who was studying for a yoga and a masseuse degree to massage. A lot of people are not broken.
It’s a means to an end.
I know someone who was actually studying to be a court reporter. She was stripping for a long time. She was in her 40s. She decided that it’s not something you can do forever. She started studying to be a court reporter. She had had this job for a long time. She had a lot of regular customers. She made good money. I’ve said this before. At the end of the day, it’s just a job.
When you’re in a regular office, and there’s competition between people, and you’re trying to get the boss’s attention, you’re trying to get a promotion, or whatever the deal may be, there’s gossip, and there’s drama at the office. At the end of the day, it’s your office. It just happens to be a strip club, but it’s your office. There’s competition. There’s drama. Every place I’ve ever worked, there was drama. As far as people being broken, that’s a judgmental thing to say.
It’s a misconception. We cleared it up. Thank you so much. I got to hear that.
Thank you.
Final Thoughts: A Profound Testament to Rebirth
In closing, I’d like to thank you for this thought-provoking interview because it’s so filled with liberating truths.
Thank you.
You’re welcome. Your recovery stories are a profound testament to grief and rebirth. I applaud the courage it took for you to step out of survival mode, break free from generational cycles, and begin the hard work of healing and rebuilding life on your own terms. It is so admirable. I wish for you to continue to shine your light for others on their own journeys of healing and transformation. From my heart, I wish you abundant blessings.
Thank you. I wish you absolute abundance and nothing but peace, love, and joy.
We’re going to help a lot of people with this interview. It’s wonderful. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me.
You’re welcome. To my cherished Grief and Rebirth fans, stay tuned. We’ll see you again soon. Many blessings.
Thank you so much.
You’re welcome. As I like to say, to be continued.
Guest’s Links:
- Connect with Alla Kaplan on Medium
- The Jewish Stripper, Raw and Real
- Connect with Alla Kaplan on YouTube
- Connect with Alla Kaplan on Facebook
About Alla Kaplan
Alla Kaplan is a truth-teller with a mic and a mission. As host of The Jewish Stripper: Raw and Real, she brings unapologetic conversations to life—blending lived experience with a deep curiosity about human behavior. From exploring the psychology of cheating and narcissistic abuse to navigating mental health challenges and reclaiming identity, Alla offers a lens shaped by resilience, faith, and fierce honesty.
Born in Russia and raised in the U.S., Alla’s story includes surviving domestic abuse, living with bipolar disorder, and working as a stripper while in an abusive marriage. Today, she draws from that complex journey—one that spans trauma, healing, and self-empowerment—to challenge social stigma, speak to taboo, and create space for others to be heard.
Whether unpacking gender dynamics, faith, or societal judgment, Alla approaches each conversation with compassion and clarity. Her interviews have reached thousands online, and her candid solo episodes—especially those exploring stripping, mental health, and religious identity—have sparked deep interest and dialogue.
