Like virtually all businesses, we at The Jewish Link have been terribly impacted by the onset of COVID-19 and all of its attendant restrictions and lockdowns since mid-March. In between worrying about the health of our families and our friends and ensuring that we were still able to print our weekly edition, we were also worrying about the health of our business as we have seen a number of close and committed longtime advertisers, supporters and friends (thankfully, many of our advertisers have also become good friends) stop advertising simply because they no longer had the business or revenue to justify advertising during the pandemic or were simply not functioning normally.

We have seen our revenue cut by nearly 50-60% per edition relative to last year’s editions at this time. Last week, we went to print on our smallest Shavuot edition in nearly five years. Usually, our Yom Tov editions are our biggest, strongest and healthiest.

While The Jewish Link has taken a hit, we have tried hard each week to produce a quality paper and I want to tell you again how much we truly appreciate all of the messages of support and positive feedback we have received over the past few months. I also want to say thank you again to the advertisers who have stayed with us and, in a few cases, even stepped up their advertising if they were able to. You know who you are.

However, I have long felt that I and our paper can and should try to do more. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic I had been looking for ways that The Jewish Link could offer more to our readers, our advertisers and our community. Many other publishers will often sponsor business forums, seminars, roundtables, conferences and networking events and we have also sponsored a few of these over the past two to three years. I am still looking and welcome your ideas, and you can email me anytime at: [email protected].

However, a recent call from Zev Singer, an attorney and partner at Greenwald Doherty with a stellar reputation (and a recent columnist in our paper as well), got me thinking about how we can do something together to help the business community more immediately. (Thanks to our mutual friend Marc Stein of Links Residential for making the match!) Together, we came up with the idea of hosting a web conference/webinar focused on giving businesses an edge and information as we begin to emerge from lockdowns and head into what we hope will be a strong and quick recovery period.

Therefore, I am proud and happy to announce and invite all of you—our readers and advertisers—to tune in (via Zoom) this coming Tuesday, June 9, at 1 p.m. to a complimentary event we are calling “NOT Business as Usual: 10 Things Employers Need to Know to Survive and Thrive as Lockdowns End.” (See ad on page 12.)

The program will be led off by our friend and local New Jersey Congressman Rep. Josh Gottheimer who will give us an update from D.C. We will hear from Phil Goldfeder, the Senior VP of Public Affairs from Cross River Bank, which has played a tremendous role in helping many local businesses access PPP and EIDL loans these past two months. Phil will discuss some of the most relevant financial issues facing so many in our community. Attorney Zev Singer will address pressing legal issues that so many businesses will need to navigate in the months ahead and likely don’t even realize what they don’t know.

I expect the program to be enjoyable and informative and under an hour…and I hope you will join us. To attend, please register at: www.bit.ly/2TZxyka.