18 | DECEMBER 17 • 2020

COURTESY OF THE WELL

“You don’t have to have the
right things, you don’t have
to know all the words to be
Jewish,
” he says. “You can create
meaningful Jewish experienc-
es with the things you have
around you.”
This is the kind of messaging
that Yedwab believes will reso-
nate with young Jewish adults
who may see traditional mem-
bership as too old-fashioned
or too regimented. He views
The Well as “a feeder system”
for eventual synagogue mem-
bership: a chance to convince
Jewish young adults that there
is value in gathering some-
where as a Jewish community
and encourage them to explore
traditional membership once
they start raising families.
Though The Well is “a proj-
ect of” Temple Israel, the two
take pains to distance from
each other in most of their
branding — they don’t refer
to The Well’s participants as
“members,” and they don’t
want anyone to get the impres-

sion it is a synagogue or affili-
ated with any specific one.
Though Yedwab expects that
Temple Israel would “get our
fair share” of The Well’s grad-
uates, he says the program is
intended to lift all Detroit-area
congregations. “We hope every
congregation grows, 10 years or
15 years down the line, because
there was a Well to keep those
Jews interested in Judaism.”
An eye on membership is
also why Yedwab gives The
Well two stipulations about
their programming: no High
Holiday services and no bar
mitzvahs. Those, he says, are
the domain of formal con-
gregations. Everything else,
though, is fair game.
That’s no problem for The
Well, which under Horwitz
built its model around nontra-
ditional ways to “do Jewish.”
The program’s core model is
“shared interest groups,” in
which a group of people can
come together with The Well’s
guidance over just about any

passion, so long as they can
find a way to incorporate
Judaism into it.
Shared interest groups
were designed to reinvent the
concept of a chavurah, a small
group of like-minded Jews,
and can include anything
from bagel-making to one of
Stombaugh’s passions, mix-
ology. But they’re all really a
means to an end to “do Jewish.”
Meyerson said The Well
treats the interest itself as “the
mechanism that gets certain
people in a room togeth-
er, where then the interest
becomes spending time with
each other and learning about
each other.”
The Well also hosts some
traditional worship services.
Stombaugh has organized
events including a virtual
“Friendsgiving Shabbat” and
an in-person “Tiny Tashlich”
for Rosh Hashanah. There is
a monthly “Tot Shabbat” ser-
vice geared toward families of
young children who are not yet
school-age.
In a sign that young families
will continue to play a crucial
role in The Well, the organi-
zation recently hired Marni
Katz as its new family educa-
tor. Yedwab says he hopes to
add an outreach director once
fundraising comes through.
Previously, The Well shared
office space with the Jewish
News in Southfield, but that
ended with Horwitz’s departure
and the staff currently has no
formal office space.

CHANUKAH IN A BOX
Of course, like every other
organization built on in-person
interaction, The Well has strug-
gled to continue connecting its
participants due to COVID-19.
“Here, I hired this amazing
cheverman (a Yiddish term for

an active, social leader). And
he’s stuck not being able to do
what he does best, which is
drawing people to him,
” Yedwab
said.
Stombaugh and Meyerson
have done what they can to
keep The Well’s communal
spirit going. When the weather
was warmer, Stombaugh held
Shabbats and other small gath-
erings in his backyard.
For Chanukah this year,
they made and distributed
“Chanukah in a Box,” packages
containing goodies and activ-
ities to keep folks busy for all
eight nights, with a social com-
ponent, as well. Among them:
a set of Bananagrams for a
virtual tournament of the word
game, and a kit for making suf-
ganiyot (with Stombaugh and
Belsky hosting a virtual cook-
ing demo in their kitchen).
The Well’s team hand-
delivered many of the boxes
to the community them-
selves. Meyerson says they are
exploring a similar model for
Passover.
At the core of The Well’s
strategy is working to count-
er the perception of a larger
generational anxiety about
the future of Detroit’s Jewish
community, as synagogue
membership declines and
mainstream Jewish institu-
tions struggle to engage young
adults in the post-college
demographic. But Stombaugh
says this isn’t a new concern.
“The Jewish people are
always worried about the next
generation of Jewish people,”
he said. “
And so it’s on us, the
Jewish community, to educate
and curate and be present for
and relate and translate this
tradition to the next genera-
tion, as we have always done.”
And the building is just get-
ting started.

continued from page 16

IN
THE
JEWS D
ON THE COVER

The Well held a “Paint the Torah”

event in Detroit for Simchat Torah.