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.

Please Stay Tuned for Information about Upcoming BluePrint Cohort

Cohort 2019-2021

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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Our Suitcase (Nash Chemodan)

Anna Loshkin

Cheburashka Wears a Kippah

Valeriya Dvorkin

From the Past and In the Now

Misha Gulko et al.

South Brooklyn Art and Science Culture Club

Anna Rozenboym

The Mountain Jews Cuisine: a cookbook

Yafo Mardakhayeva

Bukharian Jews of New York

George Itzhak

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 2019-2021

Blueprint fellows

Current Fellows
Past Fellows

Masha Shkolnik Bobe Mayces

Masha Shkolnik is a journalist and a songwriter who was born in Moscow, Russia. Masha is known for her journalistic career with RTVi cable network as a reporter followed by working as a host and a manager for Russian radio stations in New York such as Novaya Zhizn’ and Davidzon Radio. Masha has recorded two CDs with her songs and is working on recording the 3rd.  Masha develops her career in the areas of learning and development and as a hobby organizes creative events and camps for kids: www.children123.com. Masha’s articles, poems, lyrics, and MP3s as well as CDs for sale can be found at www.mashashkolnik.com

Marina Rubin Stealing Cherries

Marina Rubin was born in the small town of Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union. Her family immigrated to United States in 1989 seeking asylum. Her first chapbook Ode to Hotels(2002) was followed by Once(2004) and Logic(2007). Her work had appeared in over seventy magazines and anthologies including 13th Warrior Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Dos Passos Review, 5AM, Nano Fiction, Coal  City, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Jewish Currents, Lillith, Pearl, Poet Lore, Skidrow Penthouse, The Portland Review, The Worcester Review and many more. She is an associate editor of Mudfish, the Tribeca literary and art magazine. Her work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007 and again in 2012. She is a 2013 recipient of the COJECO Blueprint Fellowship. Her fourth book, a collection of flash fiction stories Stealing Cherries was released in November 2013 from Manic D Press and is available on Amazon, B&N and other booksellers nationwide.

Rebecca Karpovsky Pinsky

Rebecca Karpovsky is an actor, writer and producer originally from Boston and currently based in NYC. As an actor she has performed at the ZACH and Vortex Theatres in Austin, TX, as well as in feature films, shorts and commercials in Boston, Austin and NYC. Recently settled in NYC, her most recent film projects include Andrew Wagner's, Breakable You, A Lonely Woman, Pact and Strawberries. Karpovsky is trilingual and performs in Russian, Spanish and English on the screen and stage. A lot of the work she writes and produces is heavily influenced by her own Russian Jewish culture. This most recent project, PINSKY, which she starred in, co-wrote and produced, was shot this spring in Boston. Her actor training is based in the Sanford Meisner technique, which she studied under Kathryn Gately at the Gately/Poole Conservatory. She has also studied corporeal mime under Thomas Leabhart and Droznin-based movement training with the Moscow Art Theatre. She is a graduate of Scripps College, where she studied acting and film production. More information is available at www.rebeccakarpovsky.com.

Anna Katsnelson The New Wave of Russian Jewish Cultural Production

Anna Katsnelson immigrated to New York from Leningrad in 1989 when she was 10 year old. In 2011 Anna received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation “Ethnic Passing across the Jewish Literary Diaspora” is an interdisciplinary, transnational study that examines history, culture, and literature. The dissertation shows that sociological identification with the hegemonic group and nativist influences in the United States, Brazil, and the USSR, led a number of ethnically Jewish writers, to create a literature which was completely devoid of ethnic markers. In 2007-2008 Anna was a Fulbright IIE Scholar to Brazil. Anna teaches in the English Departments of the Lander College for Women and Medgar Evers College.

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.

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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.

729 Seventh Ave,
9th Floor,
New York, NY 10019

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

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