I am a founding member and stewardship council member of Kolektiv Goluboy Vagon. We are a 47-person cultural organization of post-Soviet queer Jewish immigrants whose membership spans the United States, Canada, and Germany. In my role as a steward, I have contributed to virtual educational programming and cultural production through writing, art, and cartography. I have also been interviewed by Rena Yehuda Newman in New Voices Magazine and Gabi Kirk in Jewish Currents.
Our first 76-page full-color zine was published in the spring of 2020. I contributed several submissions exploring themes of assimilation, diaspora, whiteness, class, intergenerational trauma and ritual. Cover art and zine organization was done by Sophia Sobko, the founder of KGV.
In collaboration with Dr. Dascha Klingenberg, and Anna Schapiro, and siddhartha lokanandi at Hopscotch Reading Room in Berlin, KGV members held a virtual meal ("Sovemstnii Stol") with post-Soviet Jews in Germany. Meeting over food and drinks, we discussed how our respective cultural environments have shaped our experiences of difference and belonging.
Stepha Velednitsky 