The Entrepreneurship Process of Western Immigrants Who Have Impacted Religious Education in Israel: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

The study’s aim was to identify the entrepreneurial process ten Jewish immigrant religious educators utilized when establishing innovative educational institutions, thereby affecting the Israeli religious education system. We utilized a social innovation approach to education entrepreneurship applying a qualitative analysis of life story interviews. The findings describe four phases that comprise the education entrepreneurial process: early personal development, critique of the current status quo, call to action, and the establishment of an innovative religious education organization.

Keywords:

• Religious education
• Jewish education
• entrepreneurship
• education entrepreneurship
• Social entrepreneurship 

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It must be noted that in the 1990’s, a third Orthodox religious stream was established by the Shas party. This stream focuses on the Sephardic Jewish pupils whose parents and grandparents had emigrated from North African and Asian countries (Shamal 2000).

2 The term “Rabbanit” in this context is an honorary nonaccredited title

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Mirvis

Jonathan Mirvis is a senior lecturer at The Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research areas are Jewish education and social entrepreneurship.