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Jewish Activity Hub

Partners Detroit envisions a community house
in Royal Oak for young professionals.

I

magine a center specifically for young Jewish
professionals of all religious stripes to gather,
cook, socialize and embrace Jewish life. There's no
place dedicated to that right now.
But the Jean and Theodore Weiss Partners Detroit,
part of Southfield-based Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, aims to
change that.
It plans to open a 7,500-square-foot center on
Seventh Street, just east of Main, in Royal Oak, near the
Woodward Avenue corridor. An old antiques store on the
site will be demolished to make way for a community
house designed for Jewish professionals ages 21-35
— bridging the gap between the campus Hillel and the
neighborhood synagogue ("the doughnut-hole years")
on the Jewish lifecycle continuum.
"They are the most underserved Jewish demographic,"
says Rabbi Leiby Burnham, director of Partners Detroit's
Young Professionals Division (YPD).
"In the doughnut-hole years, there is no brick-and-
mortar place focusing on 21- to 35-year-old Jewish
professionals, no place they can go any evening they
want and hang out, get some dinner, do some socializing
and connect Jewishly.
"We want to fill that gaping hole."

A Focal Point

"This important hub of Jewish activity for young Jewish
professionals will be a gathering place for the myriad
of Partners programs for the young adult members of
the Jewish community," President Gary Torgow said in
addressing the Yeshiva's 100th-anniversary dinner crowd
in Detroit on Nov. 16.
The Yeshiva operates an Orthodox day school for
boys and girls. Partners Detroit's flagship is the hugely
successful Tuesday-night, pluralistic adult study program.
Once funding for the community house for young
professionals is finalized, construction and operating
budgets will be developed and a timetable for opening
will be determined. Also, a name will be chosen.
The community house, open to young Jews of all
levels of religious observance, is projected to open by
late 2015. Rabbi Burnham and two Young Professionals
Division colleagues, Rabbi Noam Gross and educator Erin
Stiebel, will staff the building.
Unlike the Tuesday-night adult study program, which
offers one-on-one Torah and Talmud learning, the young
professionals program will stress Jewish activities such
as social events, dinner classes, guest speakers, kosher
cooking demonstrations, and occasional Shabbat and
holiday meals.

Partnering Efforts

Much of Partners Detroit's programming is in
conjunction with other Jewish communal organizations.
For example, Partners Detroit's community lunch-and-
learn programs are in collaboration with Federation's

ROBERT SKLAR I CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

This is an artist's rendering of the new Partners Detroit community house in Royal Oak. It's
slated to open later this year.

Alliance for Jewish Education. Partners
Partners Detroit's religiously inclusive approach
Detroit's Torah on Tap and Lag b'Omer
to Jewish life makes it an attractive match
blowout for young adults are in collaboration
for NEXTGen. "We're non-denominational so
with Federation's NEXTGen Detroit.
we're looking only for cross-denominational
Burnham is a board member of NEXTGen
partnerships," Rosenzveig said.
Detroit.
Along the Woodward Avenue corridor, the
"I just concluded a five-year stint on its
Woodward Avenue Shul in Royal Oak already
executive committee so I am very close to
offers some programming for young professionals.
Miriam
NEXTGen," Burnham said. "I love working
Aish in the Woods in Oak Park is more family
Rosenzv eig
with them. I look forward to a strong
oriented in its programming.
continued partnership."
From conception to opening, Partners Detroit's
NEXTGen Executive Director Miriam Rosenzveig
community house will have an unrelentingly singular
echoes those sentiments.
focus on young professionals.
"We love working with organizations that do
Says Burnham: "I see it being a place where, like the
awesome things to engage the young adult population,"
theme song in the TV show Cheers says, 'everybody
she told the 1N. "The new Partners Detroit center will
knows your name.' We want it to be the comfort food
only enhance Jewish life in Metro Detroit. We think they'll
for the young Jewish professional seeking community
do great stuff."
engagement." ❑

"In the doughnut-hole years, there is no
brick-and-mortar place focusing on
21- to 35-year-old Jewish professionals."

— Rabbi Burnham

JN

January 8 • 2015

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