Erica F.,
JSC Fellow, Minsk Jewish Campus, Belarus, FSU

Meet Erica and learn about her time as a JSC Volunteer in Belarus..

Erica Fishbein just completed a year in Minsk, Belarus, as a Jewish Service Corps (JSC) Fellow at the Minsk Jewish Campus, where she worked with local staff on proposal-writing and fundraising, creating public relations materials for community organizations, and enhancing Shabbat and holiday programs with her broad Jewish knowledge. Prior to coming to Minsk, Erica earned a B.A. in Islamic Studies at George Washington University, where she researched the history of Jews in Islamic lands and studied Arabic and Yiddish. While at GWU, Erica was an active member and organizer of Hillel programs, and was selected to travel to Ukraine to run Passover seders for home-bound elderly Hesed clients and youth. She spent eight months in Israel at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, where she improved her Hebrew conversational skills with her Israeli classmates. At the end of her year in Minsk, Erica is proud to say that she has become conversational in Russian.