This was the stark warning given by historian Dr Yaakov Wise to Liverpool Jewry at Sunday's Limmud Day at Hope University.

Dr Wise warned the more than 500-strong audience: "This is the end of the road for middle-of-the-road Jewry. Your children and grandchildren will not be the same as you. They will either be much frummer or less frum than you."

He urged the community to "put Yiddishkeit back into Yidden in Liverpool".

But he added: "I am not suggesting that you sit and learn all day. But you have to do something serious about Jewish education.

"You will only survive with a lot of Jewish education, not a couple of hours a week. Your children should learn every day, go to shul, do Jewish things, have Jewish friends, go to Israel and become 100 per cent committed."

He also said that if Liverpool Jewry wished to survive it had to produce many more babies.

He said: "The choice is yours. In 25 years there will only be Jews in London, Gateshead, Broughton Park and Prestwich (Manchester) if things don't change."

Dr Wise's concerns were shared by Harold House chairman Sam Beilin who was worried that there would not be the people around to run and use the communal institutions which were not due for rebuilding till the end of 2010.

He said: "Many provincial communities are facing extinction. Intermarriage is at a record high."

He felt Liverpool Jewry did not have inspired Orthodox religious leadership to attract young people back to Liverpool.

He said: "We are listless, rudderless and butcherless."

A communal failing, he said, had been in trying to please everyone, especially the older generation who harked back to the good, old days.

Mr Beilin, 44, said: "That stops younger people getting involved. Young committees have become de-energised by politics. It is time the older people stood down or there will be nothing left to save.

"This is the last chance before the saloon bar runs dry. We need a captain to lead us through stormy waters."

However, long-time communal leader Naomi Kingston denied that Liverpool Jewry was shrinking.

She said: "We are just increasing the population of North West London and Israel."

Rabbi Zvi Solomons of Princes Road Synagogue agreed with Dr Wise but suggested that what was needed was not just "Yiddishkeit" but the "full spectrum of Jewish culture" as provided by Limmud.

The rabbi who is leaving for Reading synagogue next month urged Liverpool Jewry to "loosen up".

He worried about the "obsession with a mechanistic approach to religion" and urged participants to "take out the mechanical and put the brain back into Judaism".

He said: "You have to think as a Jew. We are losing a lot of Jews because we do not show the relevance of Judaism to their lives."

Rabbi Solomons also urged parents to augment their children's Jewish education at home.

He said: "It does not matter which shul your child goes to. I would rather see parents take their children to the Reform and engage with them educationally, than to an Orthodox shul and not engage."

The problem was, he said, that while children's secular education was on a very high level, their Jewish education was "infantalised" and was just a "mogadon on the side".

He also urged the community to be more welcoming to those who had gone away from Judaism and criticised communal institutions and local businessmen who practised "on the edge of honesty".

Limmud founder Clive Lawton said that there was not just one way of passing on Judaism.

He said: "There are two ways of creating future Jews. One is to have them. The other is to have a creative rabbinate, which will be more welcoming.

"The halachic method should not just be a stick to bash people on the head."

Mr Lawton claimed that Limmud had revitalised the Jewish centre ground.