Dr. Arielle Levites

Dr. Arielle Levites is the Executive Director of the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE). CASJE is an evolving community of researchers, practitioners, and philanthropic leaders dedicated to improving the quality of knowledge that can be used to guide the work of Jewish education. CASJE supports research shaped by the wisdom of practice, practice guided by research, and philanthropy informed by a sound base of evidence. CASJE’s programmatic and fiduciary home is at the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development. You can learn more about CASJE’s mission and program of research at casje.org.

Dr. Levites’ research focuses on contemporary American Jewish education. She has conducted a number of applied studies on behalf of American Jewish educational enterprises, with a focus on young adults and teens. Her work has been recognized with awards from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the Network for Research in Jewish Education. Her manuscript, Raising Jewish Spirits: American Jews, Religious Emotion, and American Spirituality (under advance contract) is based on an ethnographic study of contemporary American Jewish spiritual practitioners.

Dr. Levites has served as the Golda Och Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a visiting assistant professor at Hebrew College in the Shoolman Graduate School, and an affiliated scholar at Brandeis University’s Mandel Center. She holds a BA from Brown University in Religious Studies, a MSEd in Religious Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD from NYU in Education and Jewish Studies. She is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, as a Davidson Scholar.

Dr. Levites is an affiliated faculty member of the Global Food Institute at GW.