LIMMUD FSU Recharge Presenters 2016

Yigal Kotler, a Jewish educator with an MA in History and an MA in Jewish Education, is a doctoral candidate at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Davidson School of Jewish Education. He is also a graduate of Mandel Jerusalem Fellows, a two-year Israel based program for leaders in Jewish education. Yigal, a native of Odessa, Ukraine, became actively involved in the reawakening of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union as the founder and director of the first Jewish school in Odessa in 1990. Throughout his career, he has obtained extensive international experience in Jewish education and community development, working for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Hillel, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, as well as other organizations in Israel and the U.S. Currently, he works for the Global Day of Jewish Learning, the educational initiative of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and is an acclaimed lecturer and presenter in a variety of educational settings. Yigal is a founding co-chairman of Limmud FSU USA, the annual conference for Russian Jewish Americans, and the author of the book Essays on the History of Odessa Jews. His main academic interests include Jewish education, identity studies, and the history of Russian Jewry.