Annual Meeting 2021

Ella Goncharova

A lifelong resident of Dnipro, Ella is a graduate of Dnepropetrovsk State University, She is a mother of two children (son and daughter) and a proud grandmother of four. For more than 35 years Ella contributed to the cultural and Jewish life in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. While serving as the  Artistic Deputy Director for the Shinnik Cultural and Sports Complex of Dneproshina OJSC (Dnipro),  she took an active part in the life of the local Jewish community in the All-Ukrainian Women's Jewish Organization Project Kesher. From 1996 - 2016, Ella was the Director of the Sunday Jewish School at the Israeli Cultural Center (Embassy of the State of Israel in Ukraine).   She was in charge of the Business Club of the Israel Cultural Center and was the Executive Director of the Young Leaders and the Talmud Torah project. With Project Kesher, Ella served as Project Coordinator of Economic and Legal Literacy and Lador va Dor-The Power of Generations and currently leads their Mom to Mom program.

Sarah Abramson, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President for Strategy and Impact at Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Sarah

began her career in London as a Senior Policy Researcher for the Jewish Policy Institute and at the Board of Deputies of British Jews, where she liaised directly with members of parliament to represent the voices of British Jews to the UK Government. After moving home to Boston, Sarah became the first professional Executive Director of Yad Chessed, a Jewish cash assistance agency. In two years, Sarah grew Yad Chessed from a $200,000 organization to one distributing over $1.4 million dollars of direct financial assistance to hundreds of people in Greater Boston. In 2015, Sarah joined CJP as the Associate Vice President of Caring and Social Justice and was promoted to a Vice President in 2017.

Sarah graduated from Wesleyan University with the highest honors and a degree in religious studies. She holds a dual master's in Gender and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and completed her PhD in Sociology in 2010 with a dissertation on the concept of authenticity in Jewish youth movements and informal educational spaces. Sarah’s award-winning research from both her Ph.D. and additional studies on domestic violence and economic disadvantage have been published widely. She has consulted with many Jewish organizations, most notably serving as the chief consultant for the construction of London’s first large independent living facility solely for Holocaust survivors, which opened in 2008 and has since won numerous awards for its innovative use of space that incorporates the particular needs of the survivor community.  Sarah lives in Sudbury with her two children, Amelia and Henry, and her husband Steven.