Fears often mask wishes, just as wishes can mask fears.
The facts behind the fears are plain for all to see. The masses of America's Jews, third and fourth generation descendants of immigrants have embraced the American dream of social equality, democracy, individualism and the pursuit of private happiness too passionately. This embrace of the American value system has resulted in widespread interfaith marriage, a decline in synagogue affiliation, a general disinterest in Jewish religious education and related process of disaffiliation with the formal institutions of the Jewish community. The conclusion that the vast and growing numbers of unaffiliated Jews are doomed to cultural extinction is by no means obvious. Throughout the United States there are tens of thousands of interfaith families whose Jewish partners have attracted their spouses and children to a wide variety of Jewish social and religious participation.