14 | DECEMBER 17 • 2020

Rabbi Jeff Stombaugh takes
over as executive director of
celebrated Jewish

young-adult group.

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR

The Well
Digs
Deeper

F

or the time being, Rabbi
Jeff Stombaugh is still
uncomfortable with being
referred to as The Well’s new exec-
utive director.
“Who am I to embody this
thing?” he asks. “I’ve only just
arrived. I’m trying to keep it
floating. I haven’t actually built
anything yet.
”
But Stombaugh is, indeed, the
new head of this Metro Detroit
initiative for Jewish young adult
social activity, an organization that
has earned national accolades for
its innovative approach to living
Jewishly and just wrapped its
annual “Build the Well” fundrais-
ing campaign.
The Seattle native arrived in
Detroit this summer to start his
new job fresh from a two-year
rabbinical fellowship in Chicago
and has faced three daunting chal-
lenges at once.
First, he and his wife, Stephanie
Belsky, are starting over in a new

city; second, they’ve been hand-
ed the keys to a still-young and
experimental young Jewish group
directly from its beloved founding
director; and third, they’ve had
to do all this as COVID-19 has
severely restricted their ability to
conduct outreach or even famil-
iarize themselves with their new
home.
“Stephanie and I are equally
eager for this chapter of the pan-
demic to end so that we can really
be present,
” Stombaugh said. “In
a community where everybody
seems to know everybody, we are
the new kids — and we just can’t
wait to meet everybody.
”

A MISSION IN TRANSITION
When Rabbi Daniel Horwitz
first partnered with Rabbi Paul
Yedwab at Temple Israel to form
The Well in 2015, they had grand
ambitions at play.
Among them: If The Well
proved to be a success with its

IN
THE
JEWS D
ON THE COVER

Rabbi Jeff Stombaugh and his wife, Stephanie Belsky, of Royal Oak

demonstrate how to make sufganiyot over Zoom.

JERRY ZOLYNSKY/JEWISH NEWS