Over the course of the twentieth century changing circumstances have prompted American Jewish educators to develop new educational strategies to address these needs, and these developments are an important aspect of the sociology of American Jewish education. Using the method of historical sociology, I examine the educational configuration at three points in time over the course of past century (1910, 1960, 2000) when the "frontier" of Jewish education shifted, giving rise to a new kind of Jewish learner. These new contexts prompted the pioneering efforts of farsighted educators who invented institutions and approaches attuned to the perceived exigencies of the milieu and to the changing characteristics of the learners. (Contains 8 footnotes.)