When a Jewish girl in 12th grade stands up to discuss Israeli politics, she speaks with the same confidence level as a boy in 7th grade.
What’s more, two-thirds of boys in Jewish day schools feel confident discussing Israeli politics and history, compared with only half of girls. The gap is especially pronounced for current events in Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the geography of the land of Israel. In each domain, girls are approximately 15 percentage points less confident than boys.
This is what emerged from my analysis of data from 3,703 students across 96 North American Jewish day schools, collected in 2012-13. As a sociologist who studies how gender shapes educational outcomes, this gender confidence gap reveals a systemic failure.
Let me put this in perspective: girls at the cusp of graduating high school are about as confident — and in some cases less confident — discussing Israeli politics and history as boys who recently became bar mitzvah. We’re sending young women to college with the political confidence of middle school boys.
Yet these same girls demonstrate stronger emotional connections to Israel than their male peers. They know just as much about Israeli history — recognizing leaders like Herzl, Ben-Gurion, and Golda Meir at identical rates as boys. Interestingly, when it comes to Israeli culture and daily life in Israel, both genders feel equally non-confident. It’s probably not coincidental that the areas where confidence is equal are unrelated to politics and history. The message is clear: We’ve created an environment where political and historical discourse feels like male territory.
This confidence gap appears in four out of every five Jewish schools, from Orthodox to Reform, from seventh grade through senior year. It’s not a single school’s problem, but a systemic pattern across Jewish education.
To be clear, the goal isn’t replicating boys’ overconfidence. Boys in non-Orthodox schools display the highest confidence, often bravado over knowledge. Orthodox boys show more humility. Still, even these more humble boys remain more confident than their female peers. We need to address chronic underconfidence that prevents girls from participating in critical Israel conversations.
For decades, Israel education in Jewish day schools has been “work of the heart.” Teachers focus on affective goals: How will students feel about Israel? Educators prioritize fostering emotional bonds over building capacity to articulate these connections. But is this enough if students lack confidence to engage in discourse?
This data was collected well before Oct. 7, and captured only binary gender categories. While I cannot examine how gender non-conforming students — an important and growing population in Jewish communities — experience these confidence gaps, the patterns I found likely affect all students socialized as girls. Despite being dated, I have no reason to believe the gender gap has improved. If anything, the intensity of recent events likely makes all students, especially those already prone to self-silencing, even more hesitant to engage. The fundamental patterns of how we socialize children around political discussion based on perceived gender remain unchanged.
The implications reach far beyond the classroom. When these students arrive on college campuses, we’ve equipped our daughters with deep love for Israel but not the confidence to discuss it. Meanwhile, their male peers, often feeling less connected, stride confidently into debates.
As a college professor, I see this firsthand. In a recent op-ed, I described how my Jewish Studies students are avoiding Israel discussions altogether, paralyzed by fear of “saying the wrong thing.” But I’ve noticed girls appear even more reticent than boys to engage. Today’s cancel culture makes students hyper-nervous about expressing any view that might be deemed “wrong,” and girls, already socialized to be more risk-averse in political discussions, retreat even further into silence. We’re losing brilliant female voices precisely when campus discourse needs diverse perspectives.
This pattern extends beyond Israel. Girls showed significantly less confidence than boys when discussing U.S. current events and American history, with particularly stark gaps in historical discussions.
Yet girls aren’t less confident about all topics. When discussing Jewish law (halacha), religious movements or the Holocaust, girls match boys. When discussing Jewish religious customs or culture (the more domestic realms that tend to be female-centric) girls actually exceed boys. The pattern is clear: Girls are specifically less confident about historical and political issues, whether about Israel, America, or anywhere else.
These early disparities create long-term consequences visible in our institutions. According to research by Leading Edge, while 70% of the Jewish nonprofit workforce identifies as women, women represent only 30% of CEOs — and the gap is even starker at larger organizations with bigger budgets. Even Jewish organizations without an overt Israel focus — federations, JCCs, social service agencies — need leaders who can confidently navigate Israel-related discussions with donors, boards and communities, especially during times of crisis. Women in Jewish organizations face wage gaps comparable to or worse than national averages. When girls internalize that political discourse “isn’t for them,” we lose half our potential leaders.
More Israel programming isn’t necessarily the answer. My research found confidence uncorrelated with school Israel activities, and schools with full-time coordinators showed the same gaps as those with minimal programming. Generic “girls’ empowerment” messaging doesn’t help either. Telling girls they’re “strong” and “capable” without addressing the specific barriers to political discourse — the fear of being wrong, the socialization that politics is masculine, the lack of female role models in this space— amounts to empty cheerleading. We need targeted interventions that address how political and historical confidence develops, not just feel-good slogans.
So what can we do? First, representation matters profoundly, and not just symbolically. Female field observers stationed near Gaza reported suspicious Hamas activity for months before Oct. 7. Their warnings were largely dismissed by male superiors, a failure many attribute to systemic gender bias in military decision-making. This tragic example underscores what we lose when we devalue women’s voices in security and political discourse. Yet beyond Golda Meir, what female Israeli leaders do we teach about? In my study, only one-quarter of students recognized Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, one of the largest Jewish organizations in American history and a force here and in Israel. Almost no women in current Israeli leadership make it into international news. We rarely discuss female military leaders, politicians or intellectuals who shaped Israel. Young women can’t be what they can’t see.
Second, examine our biases about who “naturally” excels at political discussion. Teachers must call on girls equally, give them thinking time and validate their observations. Small changes matter: waiting longer before accepting answers, using random selection rather than raised hands. When we expect boys to dominate, it becomes self-fulfilling. Consider starting Israel discussions with silent writing before anyone speaks (research shows girls are more likely to participate after processing their thoughts privately).
Parents play a crucial role. Do we direct political questions more to sons at dinner? Research shows parents unconsciously steer political conversations toward boys while discussing emotions with girls. Break this pattern: Invite daughters into political discussions, validate their opinions and model that political engagement isn’t gendered. When watching news or discussing current events, explicitly ask daughters for their analysis before sons jump in. Normalize uncertainty by sharing when you’re unsure about complex issues—showing that not knowing everything doesn’t disqualify you from participating in important conversations.
The Jewish community stands at a crossroads. Our daughters deserve better than loving Israel from the sidelines. They deserve to stand at the center of the conversation, not just connected to Israel, but confident advocates for their perspectives on its future.
