Almost everything can be outsourced these days. Customer service? There’s a call centre overseas. Accounts? A firm in another time zone. Groceries? They show up at the door while we scroll our phones.
Efficiency is wonderful until we try to apply the same logic to Jewish identity.
A new study from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) – What Works? The impact of Jewish programmes and experiences on Jewish identity outcomes in the UK – makes that point loud and clear. Based on analysis of almost 5,000 British Jews, the researchers examined the effects of schools, youth movements, university JSocs, and Israel trips. And while all of these experiences play important roles, the study’s headline finding was unmistakable: you can’t outsource Jewish identity.
The strongest predictor of Jewish engagement in adulthood wasn’t school or camp, but childhood upbringing. Children raised in Orthodox or traditional homes were significantly more likely to sustain Jewish practice later in life. Even seemingly small rituals like lighting Shabbat candles every week showed measurable, long-lasting effects on Jewish identity.
Bill Benjamin, Co-Chair of the study, put it perfectly: “If you want your children to be Jewishly engaged, it doesn’t just happen. You can’t outsource it. Judaism is, in many ways, a home-based religion. A school, a synagogue, a building and an organisation is not a guarantor of future Jewish involvement. It’s family, it’s peers, it’s madrichim. It’s much more relational than it is institutional.”
The Torah itself calls Judaism a morasha – an inheritance which symbolises the essential element of an intergenerational transfer of heritage. Not a subscription to be renewed, not a programme to attend once a year. Inheritance is lived, breathed, and handed down.
Schools and youth movements may reinforce it, but the heartbeat of Jewish life is still at the Shabbat table, in the shared familial experiences of festivals, lifecycle events and the blessings given by parents to their children in the original Jewish call centre: home.
So the challenge and opportunity for all of us is to remember that continuity begins not with institutions but with family. If we want the next generation to love being Jewish, we must live, learn and love it ourselves. We can’t outsource that to rabbis, schools, or community centres. Jewish identity is caught, not taught, it’s absorbed around our tables, in our homes, and through our choices.
Because when it comes to our inheritance, there’s no outsourcing. It’s home-sourced.