Abstract
The goal of the current study is to develop a typology of engagement among Jewish day school students that reflects the multidimensional nature of Jewish engagement and identity (Hartman, 2014; Horowitz, 2003; Himmelfarb, 1982). This study builds on the Jewish engagement typology (the Index of Jewish Engagement) developed for local Jewish community studies (Aronson et al., 2018) and applies this method to a dataset of over 4,000 Jewish day school students collected as part of the Hearts and Minds study of Israel education (Pomson et al., 2014). Although the focus of Hearts and Minds was on Israel education, the study collected data about many aspects of Jewish life. The present study uses that data to examine Jewish engagement among day school students more broadly. The purpose of this typology is twofold: 1. To identify the characteristics of individual students and of schools that are associated with various patterns of Jewish engagement; 2. To understand the patterns of interests and attitudes among students in order to enable educators to better tailor educational activities for their students.