Separation-individuation from the community among religious Jewish teens in Israel

We wished to understand the contribution of personal, family, and community factors to the risky behaviors (RBs) of religious Jewish teens in Israel, and whether sense of community belonging mediated the religious estrangement/RB association. A convenience sample comprised 645 adolescents aged 14–19 (420 female/225 male) from Israel's national-religious sector was used in this study. Sociodemographic characteristics, self-esteem, future orientation, degree of religious estrangement, perceived parental acceptance, and sense of community belonging were reported. Being a male, older, and living in a rural community were associated with more RBs, as were higher religious estrangement and less acceptance from the mother. Sense of community was found to partially mediate the religious estrangement/RB association. We extended Blos's conceptualization of adolescence as a second separation-individuation from the parents to include a parallel process of separation-individuation from the community. The results may help in designing interventions for adolescents in religious communities.