The following email was sent to the RJVNJ email list on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. Here is the previous information on Advocacy Day.
Dear Chaverim,
As co-chairs of Reform Jewish Voice of New Jersey and as part of the URJ, our chief concern is for the safety, health, and well-being of our community. We continue to closely monitor the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), and the URJ leadership is also in close communication with leading public health officials and medical authorities, both locally and globally.
Based on their recommendations, and in keeping with decisions made by organizations similar to ours, we’re writing today to confirm:
Out of an abundance of caution, and with heavy hearts, we will need to postpone this Monday’s Advocacy Day in Trenton.
Instead, we will host a virtual gathering via Zoom video conference on Monday, focusing on the single-use plastics bill with our scheduled speaker. We anticipate this to be an hour-long virtual gathering, to be held on Monday, 3/16 at 10 A.M. The information for accessing Monday’s virtual gathering from your computer or phone is at the bottom of this email (NOTE: not included here). After the virtual gathering, we will ask you to follow up with outreach to your legislators, ideally with in-person meetings in home offices, but perhaps for now with phone and email outreach.
We are so sorry to have to delay our in-person gathering; Advocacy Day is a highlight of our year.
Meanwhile, we ask you to mark your calendars for the May 17th New Jersey Consultation on Conscience hosted by Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick. There we will have an extraordinary group of speakers who will address issues of racial justice, anti-Semitism and hate, as well as civic engagement.
Together, we pray for an end to the spread of the virus and for a full recovery of those who are sick. We look forward to seeing you by video conference on Monday at 10 A.M., and at the New Jersey Consultation on May 17th, to continue to create the transformative connections at the core of our Reform Jewish movement.
L’shalom,
Liz Cohen & Rabbi Ethan Prosnit
Co-Chairs, Reform Jewish Voice of New Jersey