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.

