The barriers are coming down and the Jews are scrambling over

The barriers are coming down, and the Jews are scrambling over. In the opposite direction, Israel exerts a steady pull on the more committed. The ultra-Orthodox are the only Jewish group still having large families."We are fighting a losing battle," David Harman, director of Jewish education in the Jewish Agency, which links Israel and world Jewry, told the Independent. "There will not be significant Jewish communities in Europe in the early part of the next century.

In the US, they will meander a little longer because of the sheer bulk involved. In the former Soviet Union, they have one Jewish birth for every 11 Jewish deaths. Latin America may hold out for a while."In Vanishing Diaspora, a new history of European Jewry since 1945, Bernard Wasserstein concludes: "We are witnessing the disappearance of the European diaspora as a population group, as a cultural entity and as a significant force in European society."Daniel Elazar, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, accuses them of exaggeration Just. The only countries where Jewish births exceed deaths are Israel and the 700 proud Jews of Gibraltar. Where there has been any growth in recent years, it was a product of inward migration: North African Jews to France and Quebec; Russians to Germany; Russians and Israelis to the United States.

The demographic debate is no longer between optimists and pessimists, but between the less pessimistic and the more pessimistic. European Jews, already decimated by the Holocaust, have slumped from more than 3 million to barely 2 million in 30 years In Britain the total has eroded from 400,000 to 300,000. As their traumatic 20th century nears its end, the memory is fading, and the community outside Israel is withering away. Jerusalem - The historian Jacob Talmon called the Jews "a community of fate"; the philosopher Martin Buber called them "a people with a memory". They raised pounds 30,000 to buy the pub from a brewery and spent pounds 13,000 on repairs which they carried out themselves.Now the pub talk in Llithfaen is that with 50 primary school age children in the village its about time they start a campaign to reopen the school.. Around 95 per cent of families in the village gave us loans and now the shop is getting back on its feet everyone says it's great."People are dropping in for their washing powder or whatever and even though the shop is only open in the morning at present takings are already very near the level predicted in the questionnaire."Llyfnwy Jones was among a 60-strong group of locals who acquired another of Llithfaen's main assets - the village pub.