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Warning: With an intermarriage rate soaring to nearly 80 percent in California, Jews may soon be on the state's endangered species list.

Stemming assimilation and intermarriage will require serious environmental alterations, and we're going to have to start at home.

While Jews in the Old World were ghettoized behind walls of separation, the California landscape has created a new freedom.

Few children of the California dream will stay Jewish out of fear of the larger world. Instead, we must imbue them with joy and pride in their history, their peoplehood, their religion.

We must give them positive reasons to want to build a Jewish future.

It's going to require more than trips to Israel, more than dropping children off at Hebrew school or the Jewish Community Center.

Unfortunately, many of the parents of those who are intermarrying today did not grow up in homes in which they learned about Judaism. And these families won't learn, unless we as a community reach out to help them. That's why programs designed to entice unaffiliated Jewish families must receive our support.

Resisting assimilation requires building a Jewish home. It requires educating ourselves about our traditions and our ceremonies, filling our homes with the warmth of our holiday celebrations, the light of Shabbat and the spirit of learning.

We need to look at Jewish involvement as a lifelong process.

And when we send our children off to college, we need to look seriously at their college environments. Are Jewish organizations thriving on the campus? Do the academic offerings include Jewish studies?

In addition, just as we take time on Thanksgiving to think about all we should be grateful for, we also need to look within ourselves — every day — for answers on why Judaism is worth preserving.

Responding to intermarriage is not just a community problem. It's going to require serious homework on the part of each one of us.