We hear it a lot … about how the gap year in Israel has been a transformative event for post-high school students and how it has given young men and women a religious experience that they ordinarily would not be able to receive in the States.

However, no one has scientifically studied the long-term effects of the gap year in Israel in an organized and professional way.

Mark Trencher, who has conducted more than two dozen studies on various topics that affect the Orthodox community, has just released the results of an important study in which he surveyed more than 300 individuals who attended a gap year program over a 40-year period.

About two-thirds of both men and women assessed their Israel program as very good-to-excellent. Gap year experiences are said to have had a very strong impact on commitment to Torah study (88% for men and 82% for women); and attributes that were highest rated were the programs’ abilities to provide growth in Torah studies (78%), the quality of teaching (73%), and the imparted sense of spirituality (70%).

Trencher asked what participants liked most about the programs, and they listed, in order: (1) Israel, and being in that country; (2) serious Torah study; (3) their teachers and mentors; (4) the opportunity for personal and religious growth, and development of their identity; and (5) independence and having time to grow up.

I had an opportunity to speak to Trencher in more detail about the study … specifically why this survey is important, where they reinforced our existing assumptions and where they might have challenged conventional wisdom, and what parents and educators can glean from these results.

Below is the transcript of our discussion:

You’ve been studying the Orthodox community for many years. What was the single most surprising or unexpected finding to emerge from this study?

Perhaps naively, I was thinking that the gap year affects people on a lifetime basis. It........

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