What an interesting melange! (That was directed at the group as a whole, and not one particular poster.....
.)
Aman and Formendacil,
Regarding Jews, Formendacil has it basically right. The three main divisions are Orthodox on the right, Reform on the left, and Conservative in the middle. There are other groups like Humanists and Reconstructionist but these are much smaller, and many who are Jewish simply consider themselves "secular". The main religious splits have to do with different views on Jewish law, the Torah, and observence. It's not unusual to go back and forth between these groups from one generation to the next, or even from one year to the next. For example, we once lived in a city where there was only a Reform synagogue so that was where we went.
Concerning Hassidic Jews...this has to do with a split within Orthodoxy. This is perhaps oversimplistic, but the modern orthodox wholeheartedly believe in a secular education and being involved in the modern world. The group to the right of this (sometimes called black hats because of their style of dress) tend to segregate themselves from the secular world a bit more. The Hassidic fall in the latter group (along with many other subgroups) although they definitely use modern technology to reach out to other Jews to a degree that's unusual.
I'm not sure if this counts as an answer to Heren's question about cross cultural appeal and Tolkien, but here goes. My daughter is Hispanic with a definite Latino identity so technically our family is "cross-cultural". She loves LotR and has her room liberally splashed with pictures from the movie (particularly Orlando!). Interestingly, when we read FotR together some years ago, she immediately latched on to the description of Harfoot Hobbits as "nut brown" and wanted to know why PJ hadn't shown that in his movie. Smart gal!