Just Jewish: How to Engage Millennials and Build a Vibrant Jewish Future

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“Just Jewish: How to Engage Millennials
and Build a Vibrant Jewish Future”
by Rabbi Dan Horwitz

Sunday, April 4, 2025
7:30pm Eastern / 4:30pm Pacific

“Why aren’t Millennials donating to or serving on the boards of Jewish organizations the way their parents and grandparents did?”

“Why aren’t Millennials joining synagogues?”

“Why aren’t my Millennial children doing Jewish the way I did Jewish?”

“Are there any books that focus on Jewish Millennial engagement and education post-college, sharing strategies and best practices from the field?”

For a religion that is hyper-focused on “l’dor v’dor” — transmitting the Jewish tradition “from generation to generation” — the notion that Millennials just aren’t interested in carrying on Jewish practices or embracing the Jewish commitments of those who came before them poses quite a challenge, both on interpersonal and organizational sustainability levels. As a result, it seems much of the Jewish organizational world is concerned with how to engage Millennials in their offerings. But, if the data collected from reliable sources such as The Pew Research Center are any indication, there is much more work to do.

Enter “The Well,” founded in the summer of 2015 in Metro Detroit to embrace this specific call to action, and which has been doing on-the-ground research and development for Jewish Millennial engagement and education since. Repeatedly recognized as one of the 50 most innovative Jewish organizations in North America and included in the Slingshot Fund’s inaugural “10 to Watch” list in 2020, with funding from both local and national donors, a number of models created by The Well have been embraced by organizations nationally. From custom Jewish-holiday-themed escape rooms that were designed, piloted, and licensed out to other communities around the country, to a blitz fundraising model that has since worked for campus Hillels and JCCs, to a remixed approach to Jewish text study that was a semifinalist for the inaugural Lippman Kanfer Prize in Applied Jewish Wisdom and which received national philanthropic support to pilot in additional cities, The Well — never with an annual budget of more than $500,000 or more than 4 full-time staff — has helped to transform the Millennial engagement and education landscape in Metro Detroit and beyond.

Rabbi Dan Horwitz is committed to fostering a joyful Judaism that is inclusive, inspiring and relevant. In addition to rabbinic ordination, he holds 3 masters degrees and a law degree. Now the Executive Director of Midwest States for JNF-USA, Dan has served as the CEO of a Jewish Federation and of a JCC, as a pulpit rabbi at a large Conservative synagogue, as the organizational rabbi for Moishe House globally, and was the founding director of The Well, a Millennial outreach and engagement initiative which under his leadership helped transform Jewish engagement in Metro Detroit and beyond. He is the author of “Just Jewish: How to Engage Millennials and Build a Vibrant Jewish Future” (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023). Designated by The Forward as one of “America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis,” Dan is a lover of hummus, Jewish music jam sessions and shooting hoops, and is grateful to be building a life and home with his spouse Miriam and their three rambunctious children.