Faith or Fear

How Jews Can Survive in Christian America

Elliott Abrams (View Bio)
Hardcover: Free Press, 1997; Paperback: Touchstone, 1999.

"Abrams...rehearses the Jewish decline with grim thoroughness." — The New York Times Book Review

"Jews constitute only 2 percent of the U.S. population. One-third of all Americans of Jewish ancestry no longer claim Judaism as their religion. Of all Jews who have married since 1985, the majority have married non-Jews, and only 28 percent of the children of intermarried couples are raised as Jews. Demographers predict a decrease of from one million to more than two million in the American Jewish population in the next two generations. Even the tragedy of the holocaust has failed to halt this trend, Abrams points out. He insists that American Jews can reverse these disastrous demographic patterns by believing that they are, above all else, members of a community and that American Jewry will survive as a religious community or not at all. Abrams is sending a clear and fervent warning: if this nation's Jews refuse to listen and change, 5,000 years of history will soon come to an end." — Booklist

"The grim data on Jewish assimilation and intermarriage that have called forth this book are by now well known. According to the National Jewish Population Study of 1990, most marriages involving an American Jew are exogamous. In short, the very survival of the American Jewish community is in doubt. To the growing chorus calling for strong action, Abrams adds his own distinctive voice.... Engaging and...clear-sighted." — Commentary