Luke: “What keeps you living in Boro Park?”
Nataly: “Cheap rent. I live on the same block I grew up on, only a couple of doors down. I pay $700 for a one-bedroom, utilities included.”
“I went to an all-girls yeshiva until the middle of 11th grade when I finally dropped out and went to public school. I was such an outcast in [yeshiva] and I had no friends and I couldn’t take it. I begged my mother to let me go to another school. The rest of my family didn’t know about it. They still don’t.”
Luke: “Were you always unpopular at yeshiva?”
Nataly: “Oh yeah, I was totally unpopular. I had no friends. They all thought I was the biggest freak. I don’t blame them. I was dressed badly. When everyone had bat mitzvahs, I was too poor to buy presents. My mother refused to give me any money, so I’d go to the 99c store and buy a cheap little thing to give them. Nobody would talk to me. They were all these little rich spoiled girls. I was different. It was horrible. As the grades went up, it got worse.
“In yeshiva, you had such a small class, maybe 30 kids in the whole grade. Everyone is really cliquey. If it is a private school, they all come from money. If you are not like them, it’s brutal.”
