The Jewish Revival: A New Saving Remnant?

Whenever David, a successful young television reporter, talks about getting married he insists that he will marry only a Jewish woman. Since he left his New Jersey home many years ago, he has had no relation to Jewish life nor is he planning to get involved in it in any way. He can offer no explanation for this contradiction: “It’s just something I’ve come to feel strongly about over the last few years.”

In the 1960s, Marion lived in a commune. Now she works as a lawyer. She has just signed up for an elementary Yiddish class. Her parents never spoke Yiddish when she was growing up in the suburbs of Indianapolis. Neither did her grandparents. Still, she says, Yiddish “feels like home.”

She...