Dr. Jonathan Dekel-Chen is a historian of Jewish history. His research focuses on the modern Jewish world, Applied Humanities, transnational philanthropy and advocacy, non-state diplomacy, agrarian history and migration. Currently, he is the Chair in Soviet & East European Jewry at the Hebrew University. Previously, Dekel-Chen was the Academic Chairman of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry and Chairman of the Russian Studies Department and Jewish History Department. He has also held visiting professorships and research fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Rutgers University. In 2014, Dekel-Chen co-founded the Bikurim Youth Village for the Arts in Eshkol, which provides world-class artistic training for gifted, under-served high school students from throughout Israel.