Numbers, Narratives, and Maine Jewish Life:
Colby Student Research

Students in David Freidenreich’s Spring 2026 course on the Jews of Maine presented preliminary versions of this research at the Maine Jewish Museum. This research draws on Jewish Maine: The 2024 Community Study and on original interviews.

Jewish engagement and communal belonging

• How friends shape Jewish lives (Eric Hernandez) – PDF Document, 201 KB
• Maine Jews are more engaged than New York’s non-Orthodox Jews (Will Schneider) – PDF Document, 175 KB
• Jewish home engagement as a beacon for Jewish life (Alex Clapp) – PDF Document, 1 MB
• Assessing the impact of Jewish Youth Connection on teen engagement in Maine (Allie Tarkoff) – PDF Document, 253 KB

Jews and non-Jews in Maine’s Jewish community

• Intermarried Jews in Maine are more involved than you may think (Oliver Aaron) – Vimeo Video, Runtime: 3:43
• Raising Jewish children in intermarried families (Trevor Payne) – PDF Document, 615 KB
• How Jews by choice engage in Maine’s Jewish communities (Jacob Thibodeau) – PDF Document, 191 KB
• Experiences of non-Jews in Jewish life (Karrie Breton) – PDF Document , 135 KB

Jewish identity and civic engagement

• The distinctly liberal orientation of Maine’s Jewish community (Quinlan Daly) – PDF Document, 2 MB
• Jewishness as a verb: Why do so many Jews in Maine volunteer? (Gabriel Huajardo) – PDF Document, 585 KB

Engagement with Israel and Zionism

• Why are Jews in Maine less emotionally attached to Israel than the American Jewish population as a whole? (Drew Gannon) – PDF Document, 597 KB
• Zionism and practice, not in name: Complex Jewish identity among Jewish Mainers (Anthony Long) – PDF Document, 700KB