According to a 2018 Jewish Federation of Detroit study, over 70,000 Jews live in the metropolitan area, most within suburbs like Southfield and West Bloomfield beyond the city, having abandoned Detroit’s innercity in the 1950s and ‘60s. The exodus mirrored similar migration patterns in cities across the U.S., but over the past two decades, there’s been a revival, with young Jews streaming back into the revitalized city. 

The late Samantha Woll was one such person, breathing life into Jewish landmarks, including the historic Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, where she served as president.

“Sam was a Jewish Detroiter,” Rachel Rudman, executive director of the Downtown Synagogue, the last remaining synagogue in the heart of the city, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “She lived in Detroit. She showed up as a Jewish person in all the places where she showed up, and she showed up as a Detroiter in all the places where she showed up as a Jew.”

Before Woll was fatally stabbed outside her home in October 2023, she helped lead a capital campaign for the congregation, which raised $7.5 million to revitalize the synagogue’s building, a four-story, triangle-shaped landmark with Skittle-colored windows that the congregation has occupied since the ‘60s.

At the congregation’s 2024 block party, the synagogue renamed the rehabbed building the Samantha Woll Center for Jewish Detroit, but the makeover was not simply physical — in November, the over-100-year-old nondenominational congregation announced that it is reimagining its programming arm as “The Sam” in Woll’s honor.

The Sam will offer programs exploring Jewish identity as well as cultivate nuanced conversations around politics, culture, art, race, security and Israel. The only rule for participation is that participants must be respectful and tolerant of competing views.

Selected in 2017 by The Detroit Jewish News as one of its “36 under 36” and later called one of Detroit’s “great young leaders” by Mayor Mike Duggan, Woll was known for building bridges across divides, including through her involvement in state and local politics and through the Muslim-Jewish Forum of Detroit, a grassroots organization she founded to foster understanding between young Jews and Muslims.

Woll “was able to have conversations with people that were different than her or that believed things differently than she believed in ways that were kind and considerate and nuanced,” Rudman said. “She was able to show up truly as who she was in these types of conversations, and [others] were able to show up [as who] they were. People that were different from each other were able to have dialog in a way that’s so often missed right now.”

The Sam came about as part of the congregation’s nine-month strategic planning process, which was overseen by ABW Partners, an organizational development firm. The board approved the plan in October, and a job listing for a director was posted in late November.

“The community is crying out for a place where Jewish identity can be deeply explored, particularly in Detroit,” Andy Doctoroff, the Downtown Synagogue’s incoming board president and co-chair of the strategic visioning task force, told eJP.  

Along with her service to the Downtown Synagogue, Woll served as a board member of Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC Detroit, a member of AJC’s Global ACCESS Steering Committee and as co-chair of AJC’s ACCESS Detroit Young Leadership Program.

Woll was the consummate volunteer, Ariana Silverman, the Downtown Synagogue’s rabbi, told eJP. “She was just one of those leaders in the congregation that everybody knew they could turn to… She was very Jewishly knowledgeable, but also very passionate about making Jewish literacy accessible for others and so having educational events and cultural events that promote a knowledge of different Jewish literacies and interests is going to be very beautiful in her memory.”

Just like Woll sought to cultivate relationships with other communities, The Sam will serve as a meeting place, holding panels and programming that cross divides.

“We’re living in a world where there’s so much divisiveness,” Silverman said. “For Sam, it was so important for people to come together across lines of difference. Part of the work of The Sam is going to be trying to build those bridges across lines of difference, whether it’s race or faith or class in the city of Detroit. We are stronger when we come together. And she was deeply passionate about that work, and The Sam will be passionate about that work too.”

The building renovation was funded by congregants, as well as the Metro Jewish community overall, with major donors including the William Davidson Foundation, The Jewish Fund, the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation, the Gilbert Family Foundation, the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation and the Woll-Yellin Family Foundation, Woll’s family foundation. The Sam is expected to be funded similarly.

Woll’s family has been deeply involved in the planning of The Sam. They recently financed a parking subsidy program to make the synagogue more accessible.

Creating a home for Jews who don’t fit neatly into boxes, “not just for religion, but for other community activities,” and welcoming people of all backgrounds to connect with them is a fitting tribute for Woll, her sister, Monica Woll Rosen, told eJP.

“It’s meeting a need that currently doesn’t exist in Detroit,” she said. “Especially in light of today’s world, it can do a lot of good in the community and society at large, and I think it’s a really nice way to honor my sister’s legacy.”