The members of the Frankfurt school, though influenced by Marx, are not as hostile as Marx was towards religion. They do not necessarily advocate religious belief or practice, yet they are interested in analyzing these items as an element of culture from an historical and sociological position. Their own orientations, however, are informed by their Jewish backgrounds, and tend towards an idiosyncratic interpretation of Messianism and the utter historical unrealizability of the utopian ideals toward which it aspires.