The COJECO BluePrint Fellowship

The BluePrint Fellowship is a year-long program for Russian-speaking Jewish adults ages 25-40 to explore personal and collective identity through the creation of Jewish community projects, supported by group workshops, one-on-one guidance, and a mini-grant.

BluePrint Fellowship

Cohort 2019-2020

The BluePrint Fellowship brings together a select group of Russian-speaking Jewish innovators, artists, and intellectuals, to explore the link between personal identity and creativity.

What does it mean to be Jewish for someone born in the Former Soviet Union and living in the United States today? The BluePrint Fellowship offers participants the opportunity to examine and explore this question on their own terms. Chosen through a competitive application and interview process, fellows are able to bring their ideas to life and engaged in this community-wide conversation.

BluePrint Community Projects

BluePrint projects from years past have been innovative initiatives that impact the Russian-speaking Jewish community and Jewish community at large in areas such as: arts & culture * media & technology * gender & sexuality * literature * education * environment * children and family life * social justice * philanthropy

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Magic Streetcar

Alya Adelman

Musical Journey through the Jewish Diaspora

Alla Milchtein

Бабушка - BAb(oo)shka

Anna Lublina

Dueling Identities: An Exploration of the Russian-Jewish Disposition

Irina Dizik

We|Come To America

Veronica Price

The Cheburashka Project

Alice Kogan

GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF BLUEPRINT

Knowledge:
Offering fellows a deeper historical and cultural perspective on the Jewish people and contemporary issues of the Jewish world today, with a unique focus on post-Soviet Jewry through a series of informal educational experiences.

Inspiration:
Motivating participants to become more active members of the Jewish community through a personal connection to and familiarity with an array of projects, organizations, and approaches to Jewish community life.

Skills:
Providing fellows with the tools to develop successful community projects through hands-on professional workshops and peer-to-peer review.

Mentoring:
One-on-one mentoring guides Fellows in setting clear goals for project objectives, offers options for achieving desired goals and outcomes, and identifies possible resources that go beyond traditional methods.

Russian Jewish community projects created since 2008

140

Projects continuing beyond their Fellowship year

55

New Jewish non-profit organizations resulting from BluePrint projects

6

Fellows who became Jewish professionals or lay leaders

47

People engaged by BluePrint Fellowship community projects

13,000+

BLUEPRINT FELLOWSHIP REQUIREMENTS

  • Fellows must be Russian-speaking Jews between the ages of 25 and 40, residing in the NYC area.
  • Fellows must have an original concept for a community project with an explicitly Jewish theme and an anticipated impact on at least 50 people.
  • Fellows must participate in the program fully, including a three-day weekend retreat and 8 evening workshops, which take place monthly on weeknights.
  • Fellows must implement their community projects within the Fellowship year, including a public launch event.

PROGRAM DETAILS

The BluePrint Fellowship begins with a weekend retreat – September 13-15, 2019 and is followed by monthly educational workshops,  where fellows meet other talented thinkers and social activists, gain a new perspective on the community’s historical context, and hone their project management skills. BluePrint sessions are designed to inspire and support participants through the development of their projects, while exploring new ways of looking at personal history and identity.

Fellowship Sessions
Location: COJECO, 729 7 Ave, 9 Fl, New York, NY
Day & Time: Mondays, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
Dates:
October 7th, 2019
November 11th, 2019
December 9th, 2019
January 6th, 2020
February 3rd, 2020
March 2nd, 2020
April 6th, 2020
May 4th, 2020

Through a guided grant application and reporting process over the course of the program, each fellow is awarded a mini-grant of up to $5,000 for the implementation of their community project. The average grant awarded is $3,000.

Each fellow is paired with a BluePrint alumnus mentor who can offer guidance, support, and advice to a new fellow, having had firsthand experience of participating in this process.

Selection Criteria

For the 2019-2020 BluePrint Fellowship cycle, preference will be given to candidates with long-term vision and aspirations for their community project and their personal community involvement. While projects must be implemented within the the program year, the Fellowship should be viewed as a  launching pad for on-going endeavors.

Preference will be given to community project proposals in the following areas:

  • New mediums for informal Jewish education among RSJ (e.g. games, multimedia, animation, etc.)
  • Israel engagement
  • Russian-Israeli community
  • Volunteering, Philanthropy & Fundraising
  • Family & Children educational workshops

Cohort 2019-2020

Blueprint fellows

Current Fellows

Masha Dinor StroyKa

Masha Dinor is originally from Saratov, Russia and recently immigrated to New York. She is an architect and interior designer by trade and finds inspiration in teaching kids about art and design. She was an active member of Saratov' Jewish life and taught tradition and craft lessons at a local Jewish Family Center. Once she moved to Moscow to advance her career, Masha also led classes at a local architectural studio for kids.  Masha continues her work as an art educator in New York, where she teaches at Kibbutznik summer camp, Kompot events, Little-Avangardist and Dacha project.

Valeriya Dvorkin Cheburashka Wears a Kippah

Valeriya is a second grade teacher in a NYC public school, working primarily with English language learners. She immigrated to the US with her family in 1999 from Yekaterinburg, Russia. She received her BA in Literary Studies from The New School and a Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from CUNY Hunter College. Her short play The Frequencies of Love was put on as part of The Headcase Showcase through The New School in 2012 and was part of a reading series at La MaMa theater.

Leonid Gurevich The Collective Effort: A Sartorial Journey

Leonid Gurevich is an NYC-based fashion designer, editorial stylist, fashion photographer, and producer. Gurevich is best known for creating strong fashion looks with luxury flair, characterized by an extreme degree of individuality. His editorial work has appeared in numerous print publications including The New York Times, Martha Stewart Weddings, New York Weddings, US, and HELLO. Leonid Gurevich has styled fashion presentations, editorials, workshops, look-books, print ad campaigns for bridal and eyewear brands, a two-part ad campaign for NIKON Europe, and most recently, an ad campaign for the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.

Anya Marfin Knots for Jews - Macramé Workshops

Anya Marfin was born in Moscow, Russian and emigrated to the US in 1995 after living for a few years in Israel. She is a local NY artist and a designer who graduated from Parsons School of Design with Bachelors in Fine Arts majoring in Product Design. She started her career designing fashion handbags for major American companies. After becoming a mom, she became a teaching artist and has been teaching and making art in her home-based studio using different media - painting with acrylics, watercolors, sculptures with clay and wall hanging with macramé. She’s currently teaching ceramics at Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan.

Anna Vinogradskaya Intellectual Jewish Salon Series

Anna Vinogradskaya is the author and presenter of the "Intellectual Club Tel Aviv" based in JCC Moscow. She also runs "Club Friends Of Zhukovka" based in JCC Zhukovka. She is the chief editor of the Mercedes-Benz Club Magazine, journalist and communications specialist. Anna used to worked at the TNT broadcasting channel, in the CTC Media holding and at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) as a PR director. She participated in major cultural events around the world - the art fair in Vienna, Art Basel in Miami, the Venice Biennale, and interned in New York. Anna’s broad outlook and her extensive experience in communicating with leaders in various fields of art, science and business will make it possible to best represent and reveal any topic of the “Intellectual Club Tel Aviv” and “Club Friends Of Zhukovka”.

Past Fellows

Victoria Drob Rus Jews Views

Victoria Drob is a National Board Certified Counselor, holding a master's degree and a license in clinical counseling. Providing psychotherapeutic counseling during her internships as part of her graduate studies has been a life-altering experience for her. For her COJECO Blueprint community project, Victoria conducted research that brought to light the stigmas surrounding the field of psychology in the ex-Soviet culture, in the hopes of dispelling the prevalent myths and misconceptions. Victoria hosted an educational lecture on the benefits of counseling for the Russian-speaking Jewish audience offering insights gained from her research results. Victoria continues advocacy work and research in this field. Her project, Rus Jews Views, can be followed on www.RusJewsViews.com as well as on Facebook.

Artem Mirolevich Russian Pavilion - Migration

Artem Mirolevich’s multimedia work gives him a unique voice: an urban mix of Surrealism, Impressionism, and Japanese printmaking.  In 2000, Artem debuted his New York show at a foregone Neva Gallery in Greenwich Village, where he humorously proclaimed his relationship with the world as “Post-Apocalyptic Romanticism. America made me the artist that I am.” The scale of his work spans from small-scale objects to large oil canvases and installations, including “Babylon Tower”- the seashell-shaped multimedia project of galvanized wire at the Chelsea Art Museum in 2012.

Artem’s work paints the meticulous deconstruction of the physical earth into its figurative elements, turning to such media as oil, gouache, wire, and ink. He is also occasionally an engraver– like Durer or Piranesi, using a craft that the world has no immediate use for anymore, yet is peacefully nostalgic and ravishing to look at. For his COJECO BluePrint Fellowship community project, Artem will create a separate track of Russian Jewish art as part of his large initiative “Russian Pavilion.”

Ronit Levin Delgado Blender Bodies

Ronit Levin Delgado (born Tel-Aviv, Israel) a multi media artist and a Fulbright scholar, lives and works in NYC. Levin Delgado holds a MFA in the Studio Art at MSU, NJ (2013) and a BFA from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem (2008). Levin Delgado has won many honors and awards bestowed on her, including the Ministry of Culture scholarship, 2011-2013 Fulbright scholarship and in 2014 she was chosen to be the recipient of the First Annual Prize for Bezalel Alumni Ambassador. Levin Delgado has had solo exhibitions and participated in numerous international group exhibitions in Israel, Europe and the US.

Zhenya Lopatnik Yiddish-Tish

Zhenya is from Kharkov, Ukraine. Her first encounter with the Jewish community was at 13 years of age. Since then she constantly added to her Jewish identity, since she felt a huge lack of knowledge due to her family being totally and completely assimilated. After getting a taste of it, Zhenya immersed herself into learning Tanakh, Jewish history and Hebrew. Zhenya always tries to vary her interests in the Jewish culture dabbling in various fields. Her works include a children’s book, self-learning discs, seminars using new methods of informal education and several CDs with her own Yiddish songs.

Alon Nechushtan Survival Codes

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Blueprint Fellowship Alumni

Alumni Projects

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The Mountain Jews Cuisine: a cookbook

Yafo Mardakhayeva

Songs of Our Journey

Yaffa Borukhova

The Mountain Jews Cuisine: a cookbook

Lana Shalumova
The BluePrint Fellowship is generously sponsored by

The Genesis Philanthropy Group.

For more information

or if you have any questions, please e-mail
us at:

alinab@cojeco.org

Stay in Touch

COJECO was formed in 2001 as an umbrella organization for grassroots community organizations of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants in New York to make their voices heard and respected. Today we represent over 30 such network organizations, including young adult leadership groups, Holocaust Survivors, professional associations, arts & culture organizations, and social justice groups.

COJECO was formed in 2001 as an umbrella organization for grassroots community organizations of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants in New York to make their voices heard and respected. Today we represent over 30 such network organizations, including young adult leadership groups, Holocaust Survivors, professional associations, arts & culture organizations, and social justice groups.

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9th Floor,
New York, NY 10019

Tel: 212-566-2120 E-mail: info@cojeco.org

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