jewish diversity

one reason i really enjoy attending events at the jcc manhattan, or the 92nd street y is because jews of different streams mingle in a non-kiruv venue. i wish that there was more of this in nyc and i for one plan to attend such events. this kind of mingling of jews is something that i enjoyed about living in the midwest. i think that these venues create a sense of jewish unity that people forget about. ahavas yisroel for those who arent necessarily as religiously observant as you are. a kiruv group can't achieve this, a jewish social organization can.

cultural jews

there are religious jews and there are secular jews. let us not forget that there are also cultural jews.
there is more to a cultural jew than just bagels and lox. scoff as you may , cultural jews are important , mainly because so long as they remain cultural jews they are still identifying as jews.
new york city has a lot of cultural jews because so many jews live here. many new york jews don't even realize this until they go to other cities and then they realize how much they miss the jewish culture of new york city.
the cool thing about jewish culture is that it would not exist all all if not for the jewish religion. this is why the jcc , the 92st y , the jewish film festival, and the israeli film festival are so important. they are ways jews can connect to judaism in a non-threatening way. and from there who knows what can happen. the sky's the limit.

the jcc

when i was a kid the president of the shul i attended used to give a special appeal speech trying to encourage people to donate otherwise all that will be left on the grounds of the shul will be a jcc. it was a very entertaining speech that i admired for its originality. unfortunately the jcc in the city i grew up in is not as widely attended as it had been when i was a kid. though the shul i had attended is still in existence i don't find it to be such a positive stronghold for judaism either. but thats another conversation for another post that i probably wont write.
shuls are very important , but jewish community centers are perhaps more important. jewish community centers create a location that can foster ahavas yisrael whereas a shul if too consumed by its own religious fervor might not be able to ,
much as aish hatorah and chabad might believe  everyone is not going to be frum . however every jew might  still want to associate with judaism.  when jews don't care enough to identify as culturally jewish the next option isn't usually to explore frumkeit, the option is usually no affiliation to anything jewish. as long as jews are engaging in jewish events, even " just" cultural ones there is still a hope for them wanting to affiliate more with judaism. .
the jcc also sets the stage for mingling between religious and non religious jews because everyone is welcome. even an event that might seem interesting only to frum jews might attract non-frum because the event is being held in a open to all streams of judaism jewish  setting.
long live the jcc.