Brooklyn, NY – 29 year-old Hanny Lerner shares her story of climbing the ladder to entrepreneurial success in a NEW YORK TIMES (http://bit.ly/1hGOtgT) interview, explaining how she struggled as an inquisitive ultra-Orthodox youth, and ultimately came full circle to becoming a successful Brooklyn business owner.
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Lerner, the daughter of a rabbi from an admittedly “ultra-Hasidic” home in Brooklyn, tells of how her “stop-at-nothing” entrepreneurial approach—which she dates back to her childhood—allowed her to meet the necessary challenges and risks associated with becoming a business owner.
“I attended Hasidic schools as a child. By eighth grade, I’d started acting out and questioning everything,” Lerner explains. “I’d ask, ‘Why do you do this?’ And the answer was ‘faith, faith, faith.’ I was kicked out of school in Brooklyn because I was a bad influence. None of the other local schools would take me. So my family shipped me off to an all-girls Orthodox boarding school in the boondocks of Ohio.”
Lerner tells of how, after being kicked out of the Ohio school fro similar reasons, she returned to New York where, after a failed Hasidic marriage, she was left ostracized by the community—a divorced 19 year-old woman.
By teaching herself the ins and outs of the Internet, Lerner goes onto reveal how, with $30,000 she’d saved, she began a furniture repair service, which has since morphed into a re-upholstery business based in Brooklyn that is poised to take in just under $2M in 2013.
Misleading headline
And now all these bais yakovs are knocking on her door for donations LOL
Now that she’s making money I bet the community will take her back in huh? Gelt talks..
Did the headline writer even read the article? She is NOT a Chasidish girl anymore.
i am happy she is financialy successful – but religion makes life so meaningful ! sad she didnt find it “YET”
HANNY keep trying you will make it! one day you will find the right community maybe try young isreal
on second thought maybe she is a shouldnt assume the worst sorry
You do realize that headline is extremely misleading. She isn’t exactly “Hasidic” at the moment. And never grew up in an extreme hasidic home, how many Hasidic women are dentists ? Lets stop with the fantasies she’s from a regular Crown Heights (yes Lubavitch is hasidic) home, lets stop with the whole she escaped from the ghetto…
The title is somewhat misleading. She’s clearly not so “Hasidic” any more!
Kol ha Kavod to her.
Beautiful story. Wish her lots of success.
Why can’t teachers in schools give real answers to questions besides “it’s faith’?
Bad description.
She is not Hassidic, I am sure she does not define herself nor her life style as Hassidic.
This is not news worthy
Good for her ! Kol Hakavod
An inspiration- she is Orthodox, owns a successful company and is proudly (and openly) Frum in the business world!
Drumroll please. Let the chassidim-bashing begin!
she thinks she invented America etc………………………………….
Good for the girl! she was brave and srong. The community should have embraced her!
The community should have embraced her!
Thank goodness she left Hasidism. She can now think for herself, support herself and help others. She has a brain and is using it which is so uncommon amongst our girls.
The sinister NYT is implying that she needed to leave orthodoxy to be a successful businesswoman. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The only unique part of her story is the fact that she’s a female. I can name dozen’s of guys who grew up in Hasidic homes and made millions before their 30th birthday.
Why are many above bloggers saying she is not Chasidish. Do any of u know her?
I too had a “crisis of faith” at around the same age as her.
So I took matters into my own hands and started studying many books/Sforim in search of answers.
It’s all in there.
I didn’t need teachers and parents to answer all my questions. I did much of the research myself. (That’s what an HONESTLY inquisitive person does.)
After just 2 or 3 years I already found the answers to many (maybe half) of my questions.
So I figured it’s safe to assume that the rest of the answers are available as well, pending further investigation.
Crisis over.
It literally enrages me when a child (or adult) is reprimanded for asking questions.
“Faith” is a good answer SOMETIMES. But not as a “cure all”!
I found that “Faith” is frequently used as an answer by ignorant people that are too lazy to do some serious research…
Especially regarding Jewish topics.
I should mention though that I have my doubts that she was kicked out only because of asking questions.
I would not question whether she is Chassidic or not. I would question only merely the idea that she wants publicity and wants to point out her success when she is only a 29 year old. Perhaps when she is almost 50 can we decide if this was her fortune. But good for her. Princess in power. Nice.
Read the article & its pretty clear she is no longer religious & ostracized by her family. My guess, from what it seems like, is that she was a typical teen-at-risk, who the family tried marrying off after sem in israel, but was obviously still ‘at risk’. She happened to be ‘saved’ by having a yiddishe kop & going into business instead of hanging around the streets.
Shame on all of you for judging her. They are neighbors of mine. The NYTimes is at fault for painting the wrong picture. Chani is a lovely, intelligent woman. Kudos to her for developing her own business.
“Brooklyn, NY – Female Hasidic Entrepreneur Shares Tale Of Climbing Ladder To Success”
You mean : ex chasidic slipping the ladder to downfall?
She is a great success as a business woman. She is a failure of knowing about who she is. If she used her sense of business to learn abouit Yiddishkeit inside and instead of just rebelling she would now have both. She is divorce which is nothing to her credit as a person. At the end of our days when money does not matter and family does I wonder how her story will read. You can have both as a man and as a woman.
Sounds like folks are jealous.
Her mother is a dentist, so why is there a claim of being insular and isolated?
1. She was not kicked out of her high school in Ohio. The NYT article doesn’t even claim that.
2. The notion that she didn’t know what the Internet was is laughable. She may not have known what it was in her younger years, but then again, most people didn’t. By the time she was in high school, she was using it steadily.
3. Her marriage at 19 to a “Hasidic boy” was anything but a forced, arranged marriage, considering they had been dating on their own for quite a while before.
4. She is no longer frum. I do hope she finds the answers and peace she seems to be missing.
5. In a different interview, she mentions being in touch with her family. I’m not so sure she was drastically ostracized.
Once you take out the sensationalism of her religious practices, you are left with less of a compelling and dramatic story, but that doesn’t detract from what we really should focus on. She is a good person, a hard worker, motivatied, persistent, and possesses an attitude toward growth that a lot of us can learn from.