Presidents' Report

The Tree of Life massacre was horrific and painful. As a result, EBJC reluctantly has made additional security enhancements and sped up some of the features already in progress, like locking down the doors when we are inside. We joined together as a community, East Brunswick and Old Bridge, Jews and non-Jews alike, to stand in solidarity. This coincided with our Artist-in-Residence week with Mordechai Rosenstein. He created a beautiful piece of artwork in commemoration of the attack and as a shared expression of the solidarity of all the East Brunswick and Old Bridge Jewish organizations. This work of art will be presented to the Tree of Life community soon. Thank you, Rabbi Pivo, for coordinating the community gathering and to Mordechai Rosenstein for being with us and easing the pain by bringing us together. We are not alone and as Jews we will be united against hate in all its horrible forms.

We have been focusing all our efforts on security. Your board has voted to have armed guards stationed in front of the entrance way/s when we are congregated. Additionally, all doors will be locked when we are inside and when the children are present. This means we will speed up the implementation of the plan that was already in place to have every member, teacher and parent have their own biometric access to the building. Additionally, we are holding active shooter response training from the EB Police Department. Thank you to our amazing volunteer, Steve Zeidwerg.

We are moving full speed ahead on the Pavilion project. The Board of Directors has authorized the opening of a restricted bank account. This means monies dedicated by donor to this project will never be co-mingled with operating expenses or any other project. The administrator of this account, i.e. the person to assure the financial rules are followed, is Hayley Migdal. Any check received for any purpose, from now on will have a clear designation of the funds, whether as dues, as participation in event, a donation to Rabbi or Cantor discretionary accounts or to the Pavilion project. This is also a requirement of the outsourced bookkeeping services we have engaged, Kesef Accounting Service (http://kesefaccountingservice.com/about-us/).

Additionally, we have engaged the database company, ShulCloud (https://www.shulcloud.com/). It’s a cloud-based database for accounts receivables, web site, smart scheduling and events, membership and donation tracking, member communication, and online portal. Watch for an email requesting each member unit to set up their own user access and verify and enter valuable data, such as emergency contact and Jewish names.

Your board and EBJC staff are hard at work all the time. Please be understanding and forgiving of mistakes and differences of opinion. Deena remembers growing up in Israel within the Orthodox public school system and being admonished as a Conservative Jew by her fellow Grammer School classmates, because they didn't agree or respect other ways. Let's be better than that. Let's always assume the best in people; ואהבת לרעך כמוך

(V'ahavta l'reacha kamocha) love your friend as yourself.

Deena Oren

Eric Pelofsky

Co-Presidents