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 a girl from Lakewood.
“I came from a closed world. I knew people who flew to Israel, but I didn’t understand Israel was an actual built-up country. When my mom brought me to Israel for my bat mitzvah trip, I saw Israel as a real country with real people who are all my nation, speaking Hebrew. Right away, I knew my life was destined to be here,” Klein said.
'I could take my childhood dream of education into something real'
She arrived on a Nefesh B’Nefesh flight at age 18 and began Bar-Ilan University’s prep program for new immigrants, aiming to study physics and “be like Stephen Hawking.”
“Here I could take my childhood dream of education into something real,” she said. Not yet sure where she stood religiously, she got a religious exemption from military service.
But during COVID, she lost the jobs she was working to support herself. Unable to manage financially, she went home. “It was really hard because I thought I’d never get back to Israel,” Klein said.
“I knew I needed to get back on my feet by helping others, so I became an EMT and worked as a paraprofessional with mentally and physically challenged preschoolers in the Lakewood public school system.
“That’s when I realized my real calling was to use physics and math to do something meaningful, to give back to the world.”
After just 13 months, in August 2022, she returned to Israel. One impetus was that a close friend with medical challenges had passed away while visiting Israel. “I felt I needed to be where she was, and I needed to protect the land.”
Klein did agricultural work on a northern kibbutz through HaShomer HaChadash, where she finally learned to speak Hebrew. In 10th grade, she’d studied a Hebrew-English dictionary and drilled vocabulary words with homemade index cards, but that didn’t help her put a fluent sentence together.
A MONTH after her return, she went to the IDF’s Tel Hashomer Recruitment Center and managed to get her religious exemption canceled. She joined the air force in January 2023 and later completed the technicians’ course.
“I wanted to be a combat medic, but because of my asthma, that didn’t work out. When I was offered this combat-support position in the Air Force, I heard that people hated it because it’s so hard; you don’t have time to breathe or sleep. And I said, ‘Well, that’s what I want!’ It was the best choice I ever made,” she said.
'When I drafted into the military, my dad flew here to be with me'
She is very appreciative of her parents, Shia and Shani.
“I grew up in a unique situation where my dad is a Belzer hassid and my mom is from a modern Orthodox family. Though Belz hassidim do live in Israel, they are not Zionists. However, when I drafted into the military, my dad flew here to be with me,” Klein said.
“I love my parents more than anything; they support all my decisions. It’s hard to be away from them, my two sisters, and my niece and nephew, but I needed to do this. It felt right.”
She finished her “insane and really meaningful” military service with a strong determination to contribute to the IAF.
“We have the best air-defense system in the world, but if one missile can get through and murder Israelis, it’s not good enough for me. I want to be behind the curtains and bring other students with me,” Klein said.
She entered Afeka in November 2025, unaware that the college was introducing an aerospace program that very semester.
“I’d heard amazing things about Afeka. I feel that everything leading up to this point happened for a reason so that I got to this school at this exact time,” she said.
During her second semester, the administration approved her proposal to start a student club focused on scientific model rocketry. “My goal is to make sure our great engineers will not go abroad but instead stay in Israel to help us expand our aerospace industry and air-defense system.”
Her club is preparing to participate in Israel’s first rocketry competition in June, competing against Hebrew University and the Technion. She hopes to enter her club into international competitions too, “to represent Afeka and Israel and show the world who we are.”
As an IDF veteran, Klein qualified for an apartment in the Bayit Brigade’s lone soldier house in Ramat Gan.
“It’s an amazing community,” she said. Through Ruach Nechona, another organization for lone soldiers, she was connected with an Israeli family in nearby Tel Aviv.
“I didn’t think I needed a family here; I’d learned how to be independent as a teenager. But Maya and Uri, whom I’m honored to call my ‘Israeli parents,’ have proven me wrong.
“They are highly academic and successful in high-tech and engineering, and they have become my saviors. Not only do I join them for Friday night dinners, but they also keep me on track and encourage me to achieve higher.”
Klein said she’s thankful for how far she’s come in the past decade.
“When other students hear I opened a rocket club, they assume I had some crazy scientific background. But I didn’t even learn math in school. You can come from nothing and build yourself up to do the impossible,” she said.
“I’m learning so much every day, and I love it, no matter how hard it is. I’m doing exactly what I need to do, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” ■
Gittel Klein, 26
From Lakewood, NJ
to Ramat Gan, 2019