Gittel Klein: From haredi life in Lakewood to rocketing to success in Israel

By age 16, Gittel Klein had failed her way through multiple schools in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) enclave of Lakewood, New Jersey. Socially and academically, she never felt she belonged.It wasn't for lack of intelligence. They just weren't teaching the high-level science and math she desperately wanted to learn. Nor were the teachers in her all-girls, all-Jewish studies environment tolerant of her questions or her refusal to fit their ideal of a proper Lakewood girl.Growing up without Internet access, she quenched her thirst for science by borrowing books from the public library. She filled her bedroom with telescopes, rocket and aircraft posters, and a Space Shuttle Lego set.“One of my mom's friends, Gilit, was a science teacher at a Modern Orthodox school, and she'd come over and shoot bottle rockets with me. She introduced me to this world, even though it was not accepted in Lakewood.”Undaunted, she earned a high school equivalency diploma and aspired to go further.That cloistered high-school dropout ended up being an F-16 technician in the Israeli Air Force, working around the clock under tremendous pressure to keep fighter pilots flying missions safely during wartime.Finishing her service nearly two years ago, she is now studying mechanical engineering at Afeka College of Engineering in Tel Aviv and has launched the college's first rocket club.None of this is typical for…