JANUARY 6 • 2022 | 11
OUR COMMUNITY
S
tart-up culture has a buzzword
for everything. Why be a
smart person with a good
idea when you can instead be a
“thought leader” with a “disruptive
innovation”? Why look for customers
when you can have “early adopters”
who latch on to your “freemium”
content?
There does not, however, seem to
be a translation in start-up vernacular
for hamish. So, Yiddish will have to
suffice to describe the appeal of Jlive,
a start-up being piloted here in Metro
Detroit that aims to reinvent how
Jewish organizations put on events.
(Think: OpenTable for the Jewish
community and you’re not far off.)
Its down-home vibe is largely
a credit to Julie Yaker, who heads
up sales for Jlive but seems to take
seriously the title in her email
signature — “Person in Charge of
Happiness.”
“I knew nothing about start-ups. I
knew events and I knew our Jewish
community. I knew the people in the
rooms at the different buildings; I
have the relationships,” Yaker said.
Indeed, chances are good that
if you’re reading this you already
know Yaker or, at the very least, have
interacted with her work, whether
you’ve attended a JBaby class (which
she started) or gone to a fundraiser or
bar mitzvah she’s put on through her
company, EyeCatcher Events.
Jlive may be less familiar to you.
An initiative of Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit and Federation
CJA of Montreal, it launched in
August 2020 and is still, per Yaker, in
its “beta” phase. The JCC of Metro
Detroit is also a key stakeholder
and leader in the project, and the
organization sees Jlive as a core
aspect of its programming strategy.
Today, some 25,000 people have
already used Jlive to register for more
than 500 events hosted by more than
125 organizations, from JFamily and
Aish to Temple Shir Shalom and
Motor City USY. A more concerted
rollout to users and expansion to
other cities is already in the offing.
The goal, in the coming months and
years, is to become the one-stop shop
for people looking to know what’s
happening in the Jewish community
and — through aggregated and
anonymized data — to help
organizations better understand what
sort of programming those people
desire.
“The real power of Jlive is in our
ability to empower organizations
to improve their programming and
create more successful and enriching
opportunities for Jewish people and
their friends of all ages to enjoy,”
explained Zach Weisman, head of
product for Jlive.
Yaker, affable and disinclined
to speak in tech jargon, professes
to dwell little on the Big Data
possibilities of Jlive and more on
the day-to-day ways it can make the
community she’s lived in all her life
Julie Yaker embodies the
real power of Jlive.
The
Connector
DAVID ZENLEA
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
COURTESY OF FEDERATION
Julie
Yaker
continued on page 12