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As part Gov. Chris Christie's effort to trim the state's budget, the two-decade-old N.J.-Israel Commission will lose its separate funding and be housed under a newly created public-private agency called the N.J. Partnership for Action.

With the restructuring, the commission will lose $130,000 in separate funding and consequently its two full-time staff positions, including Andrea Yonah, the executive director of the commission for the past eight years.

Additionally, on April 7, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer resigned as chair of the commission but will remain a member. In a letter to commission members obtained by The Jewish State, Kurtzer explained that he resigned "from the belief that Governor Christie should be free to appoint his own Commission Chairs."

"This is part of what we're doing to make government more efficient," Sean Conner, Christie's deputy press secretary, told The Jewish State, noting that out of the commission's $130,000 budget only $12,000 goes to programming with the rest toward the two salaries.

Before the N.J. Partnership for Action is formally launched sometime in the next several weeks, the commission will temporarily be part of the Division of Programs along with several other groups including the Amistad Commission on African-American history, the Martin Luther King Commission, and the Office of Faith-Based Affairs.

The commission, founded in 1989, seeks to promote business and cultural ties between the state of Israel and New Jersey.

Kurtzer wrote that the commission has facilitated more than $10 million in funding for New Jersey-Israel technology partnerships, in the fields of cleantech, life sciences, homeland security, and water technology.

Leonard Posnock of Monroe, a longtime commission member and the former owner/operator of Posnock Kosher Foods and Shofar Kosher Foods, said the commission's most important achievement has been helping Israeli businesses come to New Jersey, leading to breakthroughs in the pharmaceutical and electronic industries and creating a large number of mid- to high-salary jobs for New Jerseyans. The commission has also organized successful cultural and film programs, sent a delegation from New Brunswick's Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital to Israeli hospitals several years ago, and brought an Israeli police chief to New Jersey to speak to local law enforcement about terrorism, Posnock said.

"I just thought that we had contributed quite a bit to the economic and cultural life of New Jersey," Posnock said.

With the restructuring, "unfortunately, I don't feel that there will be too many accomplishments" for the commission in the future, Posnock said.

"I don't see where we are going to have a viable situation to continue," Posnock said. "I hope I'm wrong."

Posnock said he can sympathize with Christie's budget cuts, but would have liked more notice about changes as drastic as eliminating the commission's executive director.

Commission member Jacob Toporek, executive director of the N.J. State Association of Jewish Federations, said he was encouraged when Christie's budget cuts did not include eliminating the New Jersey-Israel Commission and the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, but is concerned about the continuity of the New Jersey-Israel Commission and what role it will play within the N.J. Partnership for Action.

"We still don't know what shape that is going to take," Toporek said.

Therefore, under the new structure, it remains to be seen if the commission will still be able to offer cultural exchange and people-to-people programming, Toporek said. The commission's biggest resource is "its membership and the Jewish community itself," he said, and it will be important for the membership and community to build a strong relationship with Christie.

Jerry Gordon, a commission member who on April 5 is launching a new electronic newsletter for New Jersey residents called Jerry's Upbeat Israel News, said that in the absence of an executive director, volunteers are going to have to see what Yonah's priorities were and decide where they can fill in the gaps.

"I think the [commission] members will need to take a more active role," Gordon said. "That's what I'd be prepared to do."

Gordon said he was planning on using both Jerry's Upbeat Israel News and the commission's resources to publicize new products being brought to New Jersey from Israel as well as New Jersey exports to Israel.

"I think the most important thing [the commission did] was increasing trade between New Jersey and Israel and raising the level of awareness of the Israeli economic situation and how it could help New Jersey," Gordon said.

Commission member Rabbi Yosef Carlebach, executive director of Chabad of Central New Jersey, said that whenever he has met with New Jersey governors about the commission, they were "very up to date" about the organization's initiatives and took "great interest" in them.

"I believe the commission has done wonderful work," Carlebach said.

Though Kurtzer acknowledged it will be a challenge to run the commission without its own budget and executive director, he remained optimistic about the commission's future.

"Challenges bring opportunities and I believe that the New Jersey-Israel Commission will continue to foster ties between our two states," he wrote.

Conner said that this restructuring was part of the administration's goal of "streamlining" state government and that the commission's lay membership will not be affected.

He also stressed that the commission's goal of promoting partnerships between businesses in the state and Israel will continue unabated.