When a gap of one generation is created, it is so much more difficult to renew the ties.
Years ago, I used to travel a lot to kibbutzim throughout Israel, and in a few places I would say:
If you do not change, your sons will not be able to do teshuvah–they will have to convert.
And this holds true for all the Jewish communities throughout the world.
We are now living in a generation in which the shortness of time can be seen not in the perspective of hundreds of years, but rather in dozens of years, perhaps even one generation, in the course of which the old ties will come undone, nostalgia will cease to have an effect, and much will get lost.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From On Being Free by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz