This study examined the function of role models in young, religious women's construction of religious identity, exploring the meaning and relevance of religious role modeling to teenagers and their teachers in a Jerusalem girls' high school. Students and teachers completed interviews. Students were asked whether girls in religious high schools perceived their teachers as models for life or sources of information; whether they sought role models and where they found them; whether teacher gender affected their ability to perceive them as role models; and how they perceived teachers as religious figures and the impact of gender on doing so. Teachers were asked whether they were conscious of their function as religious models; how they presented themselves as religious models; types of religious models they presented; whether they perceived their students as searching for religious models; and whether their efforts at modeling were successful. Students had a self-expressed need for religious direction as the product of an educational system that did not hide complexity. Students and teachers alike probed the implications of exposing students to multiple voices of authority and stressed a need to balance students' long-range educational goals and immediate conflicts and concerns. The school had a dearth of role models and a confusing overabundance of religious figures whose messages often conflicted. (Contains 21 references.) (SM)