This past Monday found me driving down to Lakewood to the JBiz Expo hosted by the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce (OJC) and held outdoors at FirstEnergy Park on the open-air concourse behind the stadium seats. It was quite a cold day for all of us standing by our exhibit tables but I tried to keep moving as best as I could and I managed to only end the day with a sore throat from talking so much with a mask on and outdoors. (Has anyone noticed that its harder to project and be heard while wearing a mask?)
Despite the chilly winds threatening to blow over all the signs, the day was a good one and I was happy to be there. It was great to see so many businesspeople from the Jewish community—the vast majority were masked—taking time out of their work day to network, make connections, and meet new people. I have always loved these kinds of events as I have always found them to be productive for myself and The Jewish Link. There is almost always someone out there who doesn’t know that much about our paper or our growing community and readership, and I am always happy to educate and talk about how special our readership is. In fact, I can easily talk about these subjects all day long. With the onset of COVID-19, these types of big events were the first to be cancelled and will likely be among the last to return.
I felt almost palpably among my fellow attendees a real hunger and desire to connect and meet people outside of their own regular “daled amot” so to speak. COVID-19 has affected us in so many ways but no Zoom meeting or virtual conference has yet fully replaced the need for businesses to promote their services or products in person and with real, one-on-one relationships. So I made new relationships, saw and reconnected with a number of my existing advertisers who traveled there, and hopefully landed even a few new advertisers and partners. Thank you JBiz Expo!
(Read more about the event on page 32. Kudos to Duvi Honig and John Crisafulli for making it happen!)
By Moshe Kinderlehrer/
Co Publisher, The Jewish Link
