Meet Oksana - Manager - JDC Kharkov,Ukraine

Oksana Galkevich is one of the many Jewish professionals that travel and speak about their experiences and work in the flourishing communities where they live and work.

Click here to view a 1 minute video of Oksana.

Oksana was born in Kharkov in 1977. As a child she was not exposed to Jewish practices and was raised in an assimilated family. She knew nothing about Judaism. Oksana's first exposure to Jewish life happened in 1998 through the Kharkov branch of Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. As a Hillel activist, she participated in various volunteer projects for Jewish Holidays, such as the Pesach Project with Hillel students from Washington DC, and worked as a counsellor at Family and Youth Camps. In 2000 Oksana participated in the "Taglit" project and was also a delegate from Kharkov Hillel at the International Hillel Leadership Assembly in the United States.

Since Oksana’s first connection to the Jewish community, she has never left it.

When Kharkov's JCC Beith Dan was opened in 1999, she was offered a job and worked as an English Club leader until 2003. Oksana also has 3 years of social work experience at Kharkov's Jewish Welfare Center, Hesed Sha`are Tikva. During her experience at the Hesed, Oksana saw first hand the basic needs of the needy elderly in the region. These needs include food, medicines, medical care, winter relief, social programming, and the aid of a home healthcare worker for everyday activities, not to mention the care, attention, and company of another human being. In 2003 she was invited to work for the Kharkov JDC office, where she first served as Personal Assistant to the Director and now as PR and Missions Manager, responsible for production of PR reports, hosting visiting guests and missions in Kharkov, writing grant proposals and working on partnerships with communities worldwide.

Oksana holds a degree from Kharkov State Pedagogical University in English and Chinese. She met her husband at Hillel, and they are taking advantage of the opportunity to give their young son a Jewish upbringing.

April 2007