The COJECO BluePrint Fellowship

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.

Yelena Shmulenson emigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1993 from Simferopol, Ukraine. She decided to become an actress instead of getting a real job, and now spends her life making silly faces. Her theater credits include five seasons with the Folksbiene, two seasons at the Ellis Island Theatre, “Enemies: A Love Story” in Russian, Frank (‘Klezmatics’) London’s musical of “A Night In the Old Marketplace”, and “The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum”, which was a big hit in Sweden. On film, she was a spy in Robert DeNiro’s “The Good Shepherd”, she played Lady Capulet in “Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish”, she burned in “Fire At The Triangle” (PBS), and she fought a dybbuk in the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man”. She can be heard in the NPR radio drama ”The Witches of Lublin” (with Tovah Feldshuh) as Leah, the bass-playing Witch. She has also recorded several audio books, winning the Earphones Award for her recordings of “Train to Trieste” and Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl” and “Rosa”. Recently she has appeared on Season Three of “Boardwalk Empire” (HBO) and "Orange is the New Black" (Netflix). She is fluent in five languages.

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

ALEX NOTKIN Was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Graduated from The St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy 2008. Worked in various Russian and European feature films, TV series, Commercials and theatre productions. Lived in Israel from 1990 to 2004. In 2013, in St. Petersburg, Alex directed his own theatre show ‘The Letters of Vertinsky’ in which he also starred as the lead. This production participated in various European festivals. Alex has also established himself as a well known Voice Over actor: Among his Voice Over highlights are: AVATAR (The Russian Version) in which he dubbed the lead Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington, TERMINATOR 4, SALVATION where he dubbed Christian Bale, Crab Sebastian in Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid 2 and many more. In 2014 Alex moves to New York City to pursue his acting career, he then completes an acting Conservatory Program at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and continues working as an actor, Voice Over artist and stage director. His recent U.S. projects include: Theatre: Serge in ‘Art’ which he also directed at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre NY Officer Augustus in the Off Broadway production of ‘Green Card the New Musical’ TV and Commercials Madam Secretary, Mozart in the Jungle, Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, Sheepshead Bay, Ponder and Ghostek Commercials Voice Over Mercedes Benz, Metlife Stage Directing ‘Art’, ‘Defendant Maurice Chevalier’-Off Broadway, ‘Loitering’-Off Broadway Collaborated with WZO and Russian Speaking Jewish communities in New York.

Masha Pekurovsky was born in Kiev Ukraine. She was 9 years old when her family repatriated to Israel in the wave of 1990. Masha holds a Cum Laude Bachelors degree of Arch. from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. She immigrated to California in 2003 and has been calling New York “home” since 2007. Her project “Passageways” is a dance and video tribute to the feminine – An exploration of the Jewish female identity through the eyes of the artist. Building upon her passion for design, video art and tribal belly dance, Masha seeks to bring a multi-disciplinary performance experience to the audience.  Masha is a designer at HOK. She is also a member of the East Coast Tribal dance community and has been performing live video art under the stage name VJ nasha_masha.