Community

26 SHEVAT 5773

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

HAMODIA

C49

Parnassah Expo: Why North American Jewry Will Be at the Meadowlands Expo Center Next Week
BY SHIMMY BLUM

Tuesday, February 12, is less than one week away. That is the date of the historic nationwide Parnassah Expo and Business Networking Event at the Meadowlands Exposition Center, and it is the talk of the town in countless homes and businesses across North America. Last-minute booth reservations are being phoned in, experts are signing up for seminars, brochures and resumes are being polished up, friends recruited and business contact lists updated. Police officials are planning traffic and security details to prepare for the large crowds. Business proprietors and those who dream of starting a business, professionals at all stages of their careers and everyone in between are planning how to make the most of the expo. They know that the Jewish community has never before had an opportunity of this magnitude. Organizing 60,000-plus square feet of parnassah resources is no simple job, said Reb Duvi Honig, Parnassah Expos indefatigable founder and director. But weve hired the best and most experienced in the business, such as Menachem

Lubinsky, to help the event run as efficiently as possible. Public interest is skyrocketing by the day. The expo is bound to be more successful than I ever dreamed, bezras Hashem. Whether you are a kollel yungerman transitioning to the work force, the proprietor of a business of any size, a professional at any stage of your career, a rabbinical or chinuch figure seeking to advance your communitys institutions or just about anyone else, you are sure to find something or someone of interest at the expo. Our community, baruch Hashem, is blessed with countless organizations that offer services and assistance, but it is rare for a single organization to offer tangible, even lifesaving, benefits to virtually every single member of every single North American Jewish community. The Parnassah Expo will serve as a revolutionary one-stop venue for hundreds of parnassah-related resources. Over 50 prominent businesses are expo sponsors, including Hamodia. The event is dedicated liluy nishmas Mrs. Sarah bas Reb Moshe Leibiker, ah, a woman whose yahrtzeit falls on that day and whose dedication to chessed community. Many of these individuals are typically out of reach of the ordinary businessman, and their advice is valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range. You will have access to all this for the nominal entrance fee.

inspires Reb Duvi to this day.

Spirit of Growth
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of the Parnassah Expo and its wealth of resources. Reb Duvi emphasizes that the expos success hinges on

its underlying theme networking. Beginning at the earliest stages of Reb Duvis activism in the field of parnassah, he focused on networking. Learn and Network, Parnassah Parnassah Expo. Understandably, at such a large expo, it can be difficult to determine the right person to speak to, even within a specific section; you dont know exactly what everyone around you has to offer. Each pavilion will therefore have comfortable round tables and chairs where participants can gather and briefly introduce themselves and their areas of experience.

At a Glance
In the past few months, every conceivable step was taken to make sure that all the right people would be at the expo and that every single participant would benefit from contact with some of the people in the hall. The entire floor was laid out carefully to ensure that participants get to meet the people who can be of greatest benefit to them. Following is a brief summary of what you will find at the expo.

Networking Space
Lots of floor space has been dedicated to networking space. Each expo section will have a spacious networking pavilion at its side, divided into three parts. One will be a comfortable area for general networking, including partitioned space for private conversations. The second section will be dedicated to a panel of experts in that field. The panels will be comprised of seasoned individuals who will be available to answer any question and discuss any topic. Panelists will also hold over a dozen brief, seminar-style question-and-answer sessions with participants on a host of topics. These sessions involve a variety of perks. For instance, one pavilion is sponsored by the renowned Madison Title Agency/Commercial Real Estate Company, and participants at its seminars will accrue CPE and CLE credits toward accreditation as accountants and attorneys in both New York and New Jersey. The third section of each pavilion will be dedicated to speed networking, a unique tool developed by Reb Duvi and

Sections
There will be a broad variety of sections, including general business enhancement services, businesses catering to specific industries such as real estate, health care, finance, technology, and manufacturing, a job fair, academic and vocational training programs, investment capital, seminars, social services, and community development, among others. The expo offers abundant resources for people at every stage and every age.

Additional Networking Perks

Participants who did not reserve a booth in time but who have services or job openings to offer can purchase a special, conspicuous badge at the door that will offer them a respectable level of visibility, including a detailed summation of what theyre looking for or have to offer. This is particularly useful for participants who are looking to hire but did not know about it in advance or felt that the number of positions they needed to fill did not justify reserving a booth for the entire day. Other expo innovations include Meet Your Politician sections, where government officials from frum neighborhoods will be available to discuss local topics and offer direct constituent services, and Shtark Tank sections where participants with promising ideas and inventions can publicize them and find potential partners, investors or other resources to help turn them into reality.

Network, and other similar endeavors were his ideas. Each of us is gifted with enormous individual potential, he says, but when we combine the innovation, talent and experience of several people, it is an entirely different world. Several years ago, Reb Duvi began his community ventures on a small scale, with few resources, in the midst of one of our nations worst financial calamities. At every step of the way, his power to bring people together in a constructive way was at the core of his success. He became the ultimate parnassah shadchan, pairing two transitioning kollel yungeleit as business partners, finding a buyer for a new real-estate agents first home sale, teaming up with a vocational school to start a program tailored to the frum community, making referrals at a wedding. He calls last years inaugural Parnassah Expo in Lakewood Exhibit A. It was organized locally, on a much smaller scale than this years, with less advertising and little outreach beyond Lakewood. Organizers were expecting about 1,000 participants but over 7,000 men and women showed up, flooding roads and parking lots across the area. Business owners who had not reserved booths showed up at the last minute, scurrying to meet potential employees, customers and investors. Reb Duvi still marvels at the great dividends paid by this huge turnout. Many people found jobs, started businesses, expanded their companies and improved community programs

Reb Duvi Honig

through the expo. One man showed up at the expo saying that he was interested in selling an online business. An announcement was made on the PA system that anyone interested in purchasing such a business meet this man in the hallway; within a few minutes, a deal was finalized. Two people with an interest in retail met each other at the event, and a new chain-store franchise in Manhattan resulted. The examples were endless, and the message was clear: Networking works, and a lot more of it is needed. It is impossible to list every type of business, institution, and contact that will be available at the expo, but it is certain to mark a turning point, iyH, in an untold number of businesses and careers. Because participation will be so broad and diverse, with participants from across the continent, you have the potential to come across people, clients and resources you might never even have heard of otherwise. We expect lots of highly productive activity during the expos eight hours noon to 8 p.m. At 9 p.m., there will be an inspirational, relaxing kumzitz, the perfect finale to this historic event. For more information, contact Parnassah Expo at (732) 987-7704 or at info@parnassahexpo.com, or visit parnassahexpo.com. You can also receive expo updates via text-messaging by texting Parnassah to 21800.

People
The list of experts in every imaginable field who will deliver seminars and network with participants is much too extensive to print here. Suffice it to say that it includes the lieutenant governor of the state of New Jersey, executives from companies such as Goldman Sachs and Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Investors Bank, and leading motivational speakers, businessmen and activists in our

Executive office of the 2nd largest bank in NJ. The president, Mr. Kevin Cummings, is the VP of NJ Bankers Association.