Livre d'Or

You're older than me and more connected to the traditional / anglo-Orthodox / Masorti community than I am, so I expect your view of what was going on in the 70s and 80s is more accurate than mine. I had the impression that provincial communities were shrinking but still viable back then, but you could well be right that the decline was already irreversible by this point.

I don't have the numbers to hand in terms of Jewish schooling, but I know it's gone from a minority to a majority in the last 20 years. However I take your word for it that more people than I'm thinking were in Jewish schools a couple of decades ago.

Your account of the relationship between R' Jacobs and the Masorti movement is almost certainly more accurate than mine, and I agree he certainly never intended to found a breakaway movement.

The broken chain of tradition is the excuse I usually hear for why non-O conversions aren't accepted even when carried out by an all-male Beth Din and including mikveh and circumcision. I agree it's not purely about women rabbis, though.

You are of course right about the Law of Return. People with doubtful status have the right to become Israeli citizens, but they don't have a guaranteed right to count as Jewish citizens. That shouldn't be a problem, but in a theocracy which maintains a marriage blacklist, well. I over-simplified there, though.

I don't think that only caring about matrilineal ancestors makes Orthodox prejudice against non-O Jews much less stringent in practice. Because a lot of the time it's not a matter of what the reality is, but what you can prove, and there's just always going to be doubt. For example, I know I've told you the story of my great-aunt, whose ancestors are all Jewish for as far back as anything is recorded, and yet when she married an Orthodox man, his synagogue said she couldn't be a member because 5 generations of her matrilineal ancestors married in Reform shuls and therefore her collection of historical ketubot wasn't good enough to prove her Jewish status.