The story is told of two bar mitzvah ceremonies, in the same family, 80 years apart.

The first boy lived in a Polish city.  Although the family owned a business, the parents insisted that each of their sons learn a productive trade. "Just in case."

The second ceremony, for his great grandson, is set for later this year.  The great grandfather is still alive and will be at the ceremony.

The earlier bar mitzvah boy apprenticed himself as a tool- and die-maker.  It saved his life.

In summer 1939, when German troops invaded, nearly all of Poland's Jews were incarcerated. Most of them perished, but the Jewish youth was set to work, producing and repairing German weaponry.

After the war, he married another survivor, had three children, one in a DP camp, the others in America.  Their three children brought four grandchildren, including the bar mitzvah's father, who is a rabbi.

The four grandchildren, now forty-somethings, brought four great grandchildren.

Yes, fourteen Jews (his children and grandchildren plus spouses) among themselves had eight kids.

The great grandchildren include the bar mitzvah, his brother, and their two cousins.

Pew says intermarriage among the non-Orthodox today runs between 50% and 70%.  If that holds true, two or three of the four great grandchildren will intermarry.

Caroline Glick says: 

As a decade of survey data has indicated, liberal Jewish communities are in a state of collapse.  With the lowest fertility rates in America, with the majority of non Orthodox Jews intermarrying, and with Jewish literacy at an all time low, the liberal Jewish establishment seeks to retain its members by embracing their lowest common denominator.

That commonality is not Judaism.  It is progressivism.

The rabbi self-describes as Progressive.

In a sermon on Shevuot, which celebrates Jews' receipt of the Torah at Sinai, he made the case that any covenant between Jews and the Lord of Hosts was abrogated around the time that German tanks rolled into his grandfather's town.

He shares the teachings of Donniel Hartman of the Sholom Hartman Institute, whose latest book is titled "Putting God Second."  

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, for many years Britain's chief rabbi, wrote recently, "The Torah is God's word, and just as God transcends time, so does His word."

Someone should ask the Progressive family, "What are you going to do if two or three of the four members of this generation intermarry?"  Or, "You are just so happy with the idea of same-sex 'marriage.'  What are you going to say if one of the four chooses to devote his or her life to a partner and a dog?"

But no one will.  It's not politically correct.  It's not polite.

The great grandfather's tutors in "demography" were German soldiers and Polish prison guards.  But war is not the only way that a people can crumble away.

The French social scientist Eric Zemmour, a Jew, gave a speech recently about population changes.  He noted that Africa, which had 100 million residents in 1900, should top 2 billion by mid-century.  Europe, which had 400 million in 1900, will reach only 500 million at the same time.  And it's the Africans who are seeking to overwhelm Europe with unwanted migration.

For sharing his insights, Zemmour was professionally destroyed.

David P. Goldman suggests that it is the loss of faith that causes civilizations to die.  If people coming of age today believe in nothing, marry outside their faith, and abjure having children, there will be another lesson soon in demographics.