I spent the first weekend of February at the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Women Emissaries in Brooklyn, N.Y., along with 4,500 Jewish women. We came from more than 100 countries, each one holding Jewish life together in her part of the world. We show up annually to be honest with each other about what we’re seeing, what’s not working and what the next 12 months demand of us.
And ever since, I have been thinking about what it means to be connected to such a community and how that connection is nourished, year after year.
At this conference, one announcement stayed with me long after the room cleared. CKids International launched incentive grants to send Jewish kids to overnight camp. For anyone watching the quiet erosion of Jewish pride and identity in real time, it felt like a breath of fresh air.
Here’s why: If you want to fight antisemitism and secure Jewish continuity, stop sprinkling Jewish experiences throughout the year. Send your children to a Jewish overnight camp.
As a mother of 12 living in Idaho, I used to wonder if sending our children away to overnight camp summer after summer was excessive or even realistic. However, after seeing what it did for them, I learned that the research backs up what I witnessed.
Here’s what we need to acknowledge: after-school Hebrew programs, Sunday schools and family education workshops can’t compete with what’s happening to our children the other 167 hours of their week. When children face confusion and negativity about Israel and Jewish identity from classmates, social media or the broader culture, even excellent Jewish day schools are competing with an overwhelmingly non-Jewish world.
Jewish education during the school year teaches about Judaism. Camp lets them live it.
The Foundation for Jewish Camp found that camp alumni are 55% more likely to feel being Jewish is very important and 45% more likely to practice Jewish traditions than peers who never attended. Recent 2024 data show these patterns hold: 96% of camp families report their children feel proud to be Jewish with that pride persisting years later.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—understood this 70 years ago when he founded the Gan Israel movement, which today features 500 day camps and 67 overnight camps internationally, before researchers quantified what he knew intuitively. Immersion works. You can’t instill Jewish pride in two-hour increments between soccer practice and piano lessons.
Last summer, we sent a girl from our Boise community to a CKids Gan Israel Overnight Camp in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. She came home inspired and empowered, not because someone lectured her, but because she woke up for 21 consecutive days surrounded by dozens of other Jewish kids just like her. She saw counselors who were proud, joyful and unapologetically Jewish.
Her mother called me, overwhelmed with gratitude. When classmates questioned her daughter about Israel that fall, she didn’t shrink or change the subject. She engaged, defended and stood firm. That immersive experience gave her something no parent or teacher could provide—the unshakable knowledge and strength that she belonged to something larger than herself.
You might be thinking: “But my child isn’t isolated. We live in Teaneck. She goes to Jewish day school.” Here is what parents in thriving Jewish communities often miss: Your child’s Jewish experience is still fragmented. He or she is Jewish at school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., then American at soccer practice. They are Jewish on Friday night and then bombarded by anti-Israel propaganda online come Saturday night.
A day school provides knowledge. Camp turns Jewish identity into something whole—weeks where being Jewish isn’t a subject or a schedule, but simply who you are. That psychological shift matters whether you’re in Boise or Brooklyn.
Yet I watch Jewish mothers make the same mistake repeatedly. They wait until their children are teenagers to consider camp, believing that those under 13 are “too young to be away from home.” Mother to mother: This logic is backwards.
Studies tracking Jewish adults found that those who attended camp during elementary school showed three to four times higher rates of synagogue membership and Jewish organizational involvement than those who started as teenagers.
The greatest threat to Jewish continuity isn’t external antisemitism; it’s internal indifference. Among non-Orthodox Jews married since 2010, 72% intermarried, contributing to a generation where only 48% of young adults feel emotionally attached to Israel. But among those who spent multiple summers in Jewish camp, the trend is meaningfully different.
When Jewish children grow up viewing their heritage as an obligation rather than a gift, we’ve already lost. Camp doesn’t just teach kids to be proud Jews. It makes them want to be Jewish.
The barriers are real. From Boise, getting to camps requires two connecting flights at $600 to $700 per child, plus anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 for tuition. This is why the new grant initiatives matter. CKids International joins the Foundation for Jewish Camp, PJ Library and dozens of federations now subsidizing camp costs.
When we’ve raised funds locally to send children, the results are undeniable. Every child we’ve sent has returned begging to go back. Their parents report what the data confirms: Overnight camp delivered what years of programming couldn’t.
Fellow mothers: We agonize over finding the best schools, the right coaches, the elite soccer leagues. We invest thousands in music lessons, academic tutors and sports. All that has certainly has value. But a child who quits soccer at 14 hasn’t lost much, whereas a child who reaches 18 without a strong Jewish identity has lost a great deal.
The evidence is clear, and the demand is already there. What’s missing is not the infrastructure but the urgency.
If you want your children among those 55% more likely to prioritize Jewish values, if you want them building Jewish families and raising Jewish grandchildren, the choice is clear. Three weeks at an authentic Jewish overnight camp delivers outcomes few other Jewish programs can match.
Don’t wait until your children are older. Don’t convince yourself that Hebrew school is sufficient. The grants exist. The camps are waiting.
