Dr. Arielle Levites

Dr. Arielle Levites headshot

Dr. Arielle Levites

Executive Director, Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE); Research Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership


School: Graduate School of Education and Human Development

Department: Educational Leadership

Contact:

Office Phone: (215) 779-5545

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 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.


Ph.D., New York University

M.S.Ed., University of Pennsylvania

B.A., Brown University

  • March 2024 - Dean Michael Feuer, Dr. Ben Jacobs, and Dr. Arielle Levites were quoted in Washington Jewish Week's article, "George Washington University Launches New Center for Jewish Education."
  • October 2023 - Dr. Arielle Levites was featured on the Jewish Education Project's podcast, Adapting, on the episode titled, "Research and Practice in Jewish Education." Dr. Levites talks about using curiosity to fuel research on the vast topic of Jewish education — its ever-evolving trends, aspects of intersectional diversity, and ideal practices for conducting the research itself.