Not much research has been done on how Jewish children’s views on Israel have changed over time. A new project is trying to change that.

What should parents and teachers teach Jewish elementary school kids about Israel? What concepts and ideas can they understand? How do their views and perceptions change over time?

“We know an awful lot about how younger kids typically think about subjects like math but when it comes to Israel, we don’t really know anything,” says Jon Levisohn, director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University.

In 2012, Levisohn learned about a new project by social scientist Sivan Zakai, who was interviewing 35 kindergartners at three Jewish schools in Los Angeles about their views on Israel.

Zakai’s research became the basis for the Mandel Center’s Children’s Learning About Israel project. She continued speaking with the kids each year through fifth grade.

Here, Zakai, an affiliated scholar at the Mandel Center and an assistant professor of Jewish education at Hebrew Union College, discusses her findings.

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