EMIGRATION TO THE SUBURBS

Instead of emigrating to Israel, Jewish America emigrated to the suburbs, where living among non-Jews made us more aware of our Jewishness.  The effect of the "necessity" to assimilate caused many to believe our Jewishness was merely an "accident of birth".  Intermarriage (38% by 1987) caused many to ask, especially in Israel, "Who is a Jew?".  Suburban synagogues became nothing more than meeting-places, with figurehead rabbis and minimum educational facilities.  However, Jewish orthodoxy was reemerging, led by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson.  These new Orthodox Jews set out to "proselytize" the Conservative and Reform Jews (including me - I was raised Conservative and started on the Chabad path in 2001), and developed their own yeshivas.