Victor Vitkin becomes new director of Institute for Russian Jewry

Victor Vitkin has been appointed executive director of the Brandeis-Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry, effective March 1.

Vitkin holds a bachelor of arts in education from Herzen State University in St. Petersburg, a master's in communications and public relations from Hebrew University and a master's in business administration with a focus on strategic management from Georgetown University. He was a founder and the second executive director of One Plus One, a community-service and entrepreneur-development program serving new immigrants to Israel. He later served as a senior emissary from the Jewish Agency for Israel to Russian-speaking Jewry in North America. In that capacity, he developed and led educational programs, led international missions, conducted leadership training and advised Jewish institutions on outreach strategy.

As executive director of the Brandeis-Genesis Institute, Vitkin will have responsibility for development of BGI programming, recruiting Russian-speaking students to Brandeis and building connections to Russian-speaking Jewish communities around the United States and the world.