JANUARY 6 • 2022 | 13

August 2020. There are three full-time 
staff members. Zach (Weisman, head of 
product), me and a director in Montreal. 
(There’s also a team of developers who 
report to Weisman.) I also recently 
recruited Becky Melamed, former 
director of PJ Library. We started putting 
events on Jlive in January 2021, and 
now people are really using it and really 
registering with it. And organizations are 
trusting us to put events on it. 

YOU CREATE THIS COMMUNITY 
FOR PEOPLE THEY DIDN’T 
KNOW THEY NEEDED
Jlive is like a combination of Open Table 
and Eventbrite for the Jewish community. 
It gives organizations a really quick way 
to set up something. Even today, there 
was a program put on by Jewish Family 
Service and a few other organizations 
on how to talk to your teen about the 
(Oxford High School) tragedy. It takes 
five minutes to put the event on Jlive and 
put it out there, and people register. 
I do think, really soon, it will be the 
place to go to find things. (Right now) 
it’s a little bit like when Jbaby started. 
We had to call 10 people and say, “Are 
you pregnant? You want to be in this 
class.” And you create this community for 
people that they didn’t know they needed. 

When you go on Jlive right now, you 
can see there are family events, there are 
teen events and young adult events. We’re 
going to continue to grow those. We’re 
going to have Jewish learning events. 
Eventually, it will filter for you based 
on what your interests are — you can 
currently create a profile where you put 
in your interests. 
And so many people are using it 
already and don’t even know it. If you go 
to the website for Adat Shalom — one 
of our early adopters — and sign up for 
an event, you’re using Jlive. We’ll plan to 
start pushing for users to sign up for their 

own personal accounts in the first quarter 
of 2022, which is right around the corner.
It is really geared toward everybody. 
The goal is for everyone to find what 
they need. The only thing that has really 
slowed all the different niches is the 
pandemic. 

THE CUSTOMER IS THE WHOLE 
DETROIT JEWISH COMMUNITY 
I grew up here. I’m the oldest of three 
girls. My parents, my family are here. My 
husband, Daniel, (yes, he is a twin) is one 
of four boys. We’re all here. There’s a lot 
of us. I have been very lucky to have a 
group of supportive family and friends. 
We have been raising our kids together. 
I have always believed that it takes a 
village, and I envision Jlive as a tool for 
our larger Jewish village. 

Everything I’ve done is community 
based. I don’t think I realized it until 
recently. You’re planning Israel@70, it’s 
for the whole Jewish community … a 
bat mitzvah, it’s for members of our 
community.
Someone recently said to me, “So 
it’s like your customer is the whole 
Detroit Jewish community.” And yes, 
the customer is really the whole Detroit 
Jewish community. 

This story first appeared on Federation’s 

myjewishdetroit.org.

Julie and 
her son at a 
JFamily event 
back in 2013 

Julie gets ready for a 
party she’s putting on 
through her company 
Eyecatcher Events.

