Winona Ryder Drinks Manischewitz Wine

This Friday night, I attended a large Wine-Tasting Shabbat dinner sponsored by AISH on the Upper East Side. Its target age group was a term I've been hearing a lot about lately--"young Jewish professionals" in their 20s and 30s. Well, the wine was bad and my friends and I were about 10 years younger than the average attendee, but the night was interesting nonetheless. I thought it was impressive that they did get at least 400 people. Services were offered beforehand, but it was obvious that the majority of people showed up just for the food. I think that the fact that so many young(ish) people are looking to be part of a Jewish community even though they aren't necessarily interested in the practicing part exemplifies a sense of Jewish identitiy outside of the religion itself and reminds me of that quote from the Reconstructionist website about stressing 'belonging over believing." Community was a major theme. One rabbi spoke about toasting l'chaim and how it's talking about the life of all the Jewish people and how one Jewish person's life is integrated with another's. (I think that was the gist; my attention wandered.) The featured speaker was one of the co-writer's of Shreck 2. He talked about growing up as a secular, sorta-Reform Jew in a community that was almost completely Christian. As a young teen (tween?) he was searching for meaning in life. He was basically craving G-d, but thought Christians had the monopoly on Him. That G-d was a Christian concept. He ended up converting to Christianity since that was the only source telling him about G-d and life, and he even became a youth minister for 15 years or so. (Years later, he eventually saw that you can have G-d and a fulfilling life as a Jew and converted back to Judaism.) His story makes me wonder about the effect some of the movements have on Jews who are looking for something to believe in. When Jewish movements say that there isn't a G-d or that G-d is just a metaphor for Goodness or nature or human decency, does that alienate Jews who feel drawn to G-d or are looking for someone to tell them it's okay to believe in Him in a more traditional sense? Cheng kept mentioning those "MidWest Jews." They may only come in contact with one form of a shul, if any. I think it may be harder to define yourself as a cultural Jew when that's not the culture you're immersed in. And if that's the only aspect of Judaism that you're being told about, then what is your Jewish identity predicated upon?