I would like to create two ( or more ) view instances, each with different el attributes, and have events bound to them via backbone.js view's events hash ( not through jQuery ). Getting events to trigger when all instantiations have the same el is easy: someView = Backbone.View.extend({ el: '#someDiv', events: { 'click': 'someFunction' }, someFunction: function(){ //Do something here } }); So far, if I assign el in the initialize function, and set events normally as follows, events do not trigger: someView = Backbone.View.extend({ events: { 'click': 'someFunction' }, initialize: function( options ){ this.el = options.el }, someFunction: function(){ //Do something here } }); My first instinct was to have el be a function that returns the string representation of the dom element of interest: someView = Backbone.View.extend({ el: function(){ return '#someDiv-' + this.someNumber }, events: { 'click': 'someFunction' }, initialize: function( options ){ this.someNumber = options.someNumber }, someFunction: function(){ //Do something here } }); However, this triggers someFunction x times if I have x instantiations of someView. Next I tried setting both the el and events attributes in initialize: someView = Backbone.View.extend({ initialize: function( options ){ this.el = options.el this.events = { 'click': 'someFunction' } }, someFunction: function(){ //Do something here } }); but this does not trigger events. At this point I'm pretty much fishing. Does anyone know how instantiate a backbone.js view with an el specific to that instance that has events that only trigger for that instance, and not other instances of the View?