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