Starting about two generations ago as a curiosity, and a relatively minor one at that, a scattered but global phenomenon is gradually becoming a major force that is redefining Jewish reality. Millions of individuals who in the past would have been regarded as irretrievably lost to the Jewish people are now visibly in contact with it, and some of them or their descendants are actively returning to the fold. At the same time, many more persons or groups with at best very distant Jewish connections are strengthening those connections and moving closer to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.