At Prizmah, we are frequently asked about the impact of a Jewish day school education. What is the value proposition of Jewish day schools? What impact does their Jewish day school experience have on students as adults? We all know the reasons from our own experiences: a values-based education, a Jewish environment, a safe space to explore Jewish identity, a place to learn Jewish texts and the Hebrew language and gain a love for the state of Israel. This article presents research conducted over the past two decades on the impact of Jewish day schools on their alumni.
The first area of research looks at Jewish day school alumni on college campuses, then into adulthood, with a focus on how Jewish day school alumni are represented in Jewish communal leadership. Analyses conducted on nationally representative datasets help us to better understand what we’ve learned about Jewish day school alumni.
This article won’t present new findings or insights. Instead, it aims to revisit existing research on this important topic, summarizing our understanding of the long-term impact of Jewish day school education on alumni.
The impact of Jewish day schools extends beyond academic achievement; it impacts the whole student with a spiritual, ethical, and intellectual education. Extensive research shows that the foundations built during childhood have a lasting impact throughout one’s life. The well-known studies on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) have found that negative experiences during childhood can lead to health problems in adulthood.
Conversely, positive childhood experiences can mitigate or offset the adverse effects of ACEs. Studies like these show how childhood experiences can impact a person over their lifetime. That being said, it’s no surprise that a Jewish day school education can have a profound impact on a student’s life throughout their adulthood. Not every Jewish day school graduate grows up to be a Jewish communal leader, but two studies have shown that many who are Jewish communal leaders, are day school graduates.
Impact of Day School on College Students
In the current climate, it’s hard to ignore that day school alumni are taking active leadership roles on campus. Three out of four of the authors of the open letter from Columbia students (with hundreds of signatories) expressing pride in their Jewish faith and in Israel are day school alumni. Day school alumni have brought Title VII lawsuits against colleges and universities on the basis of antisemitism discrimination. Our alumni are on campus right now fighting for their rights and against discrimination.
A major report from 2009, “The Impact of Day School: A Comparative Analysis of Jewish College Students,” conducted by the Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) at Brandeis University, compares Jewish college students who have attended Jewish day schools with students who have attended non-Jewish independent and public schools. This study considers the impact of day school in a variety of areas including Jewish identity and connections to Jewish communal life, as well as social and academic integration into college. The study found that day school alumni, both ones raised Orthodox and not, indicated greater involvement in Hillel life and political and social action groups than Jewish students who went to public school and other private schools.
Impact of Day School on Alumni
In the 2004 report “The Impact of Childhood Jewish Education on Adults’ Jewish Identity,” Steven Cohen and Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz reanalyzed data from the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01 and found a strong correlation between day school attendance and the depth of Jewish identity in adulthood. Among those who attended Jewish day schools for 7 to 12 years, 86% felt that being Jewish is very important to them, compared to 59% of those who attended for 1 to 6 years. Between 30% and 56% of those who went to supplementary and Sunday schools reported the same, while only 16% of those with no Jewish education reported that being Jewish was very important to them.
Attachment to Israel followed a similar trend. Of individuals who attended day school for 7 to 12 years, 67% reported feeling very attached to Israel. In comparison, only 28% to 51% of respondents from Sunday and supplementary schools expressed the same level of attachment. Among those with no Jewish education, 12% reported feeling very attached to Israel.
A newer community survey, the 2020 Metropolitan Chicago Jewish Population Study, was analyzed to compare the differences between day school alumni and those who didn’t go to day school. In an article by Zivya Feifel Mosbacher analyzing the findings, “New Research on Why Jewish Day School Matters: Collaboration to Measure Day School Outcomes,” Jewish day school alumni were found to be more engaged in many aspects of Jewish life (71% vs. 49%), and "feel emotionally very attached to Israel” (65% vs. 27%). Community studies can be rich places to analyze the differences between alumni of day schools and other schools as adults.
Jewish Day Schools as a Prominent Experience in the Jewish Leadership Pipeline
The most recent study, “The Jewish Education of Today’s Jewish Leadership: Day Schools, Overnight Camps, & Other Educational Experiences among Lay & Professional Jewish Communal Leaders,” conducted by Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz of Research Success Technologies and sponsored by Keren Keshet, was published in January 2022. This study sought to understand how Jewish educational experiences contributed to the strength of the American Jewish community.
The findings revealed that “the adults now in Jewish leadership positions were widely exposed in their youth to numerous educational experiences,” far higher than the Jewish public at large. Approximately one-third (34%) of Jewish communal leaders attended Jewish day schools from kindergarten through eighth grade. Of these students, two-thirds (23%) continued their day school education into high school. This indicates that a substantial portion of current Jewish leaders benefited from sustained engagement with Jewish day schools.
The study highlighted a generational shift in leadership: “Younger Jewish leaders are more Jewishly educated than their older counterparts.” Between the ages of 55–64, a quarter (26%) of Jewish leaders were enrolled in a Jewish day school; among leaders between the ages of 35–44, 44% went to day school or yeshiva. Day school enrollment grows from 33% among the adults to 62% among those with children aged 14+. This significant rise reveals that Jewish leaders are providing Jewish day school education to their children at much higher rates than they themselves experienced, demonstrating their understanding of the value of a Jewish day school education. Jewish day schools are playing an increasingly vital role in preparing future leaders within the community and educating their children.
A 2010 study by Jack Wertheimer and his team, “Generation of Change: How Leaders in Their Twenties and Thirties Are Reshaping American Jewish Life,” sponsored by the AVI CHAI Foundation, looks at young Jewish leadership between the ages of 22 and 40. The study found that “leaders in their 20s and 30s have benefited disproportionately from more intensive forms of Jewish education than that received by their peers who do not serve in leadership positions. Nearly 40 percent of young Jewish leaders have attended day school, even though under 11 percent of our survey sample consisted of Orthodox Jews, suggesting that non-Orthodox young leaders benefited disproportionately from day school education.” These findings demonstrate that the influence of day schools extends beyond the Orthodox community.
Jewish day school’s immersive environment year over year provides an incubator of repetition and immersion into Jewish religious and cultural life. Jewish day school students obtain what Alex Pomson calls “cultural virtuosity.” In an eJewishPhilanthropy article entitled “The Promise of Day School Education: Cultural Virtuosity,” Pomson shares,
In a day school setting, through the repeated practice of well-crafted experiences, day after day, week after week, year after year, children have an opportunity to become virtuosos of sorts. The day school setting offers a routinized structure (routine in the healthy sense of regularized) with the opportunity over time for learners to internalize important values, become experts in complex endeavors, and grow in responsibility—when skilled school leadership and educators are in place. With the possibility of achieving such outcomes, day school students have a launching pad from which to make a decisive contribution to Jewish communal thriving.
This virtuosity, knowledge and skill is key to the continuation of our cultural and religious heritage. Day school alumni, a key component of our future leadership pipeline, have obtained this virtuosity and can therefore lead with knowledge, skill and a fluency that is difficult to obtain otherwise.
Research conducted over the past two decades unequivocally illustrates the profound and lasting impact of Jewish day school education on individuals and the broader Jewish community. More than academic instruction, Jewish day schools provide an immersive environment rich in Jewish customs, values and culture. This holistic approach fosters strong Jewish identities, deep connections to Israel, and a commitment to communal involvement that extends well into adulthood.
