The Nathan Peter Levinson Foundation was established in 2024 with the aim of bringing academic quality and transparency to the training of the new generation of liberal (Reform) and conservative (Masorti) rabbis and cantors in Germany. The foundation combines a cantorate and two rabbinical seminaries. Studies at the Foundation’s seminaries are integrated with the BA and MA programs at the School of Jewish Theology (University of Potsdam).
Chairman (CEO)
Dr. Dmitrij Belkin was born in the Ukraine in 1971. He has lived in Germany since 1993. Dmitrij Belkin holds a doctorate in history and is a curator. He has published several books as well as academic and journalistic articles on the past and present of German and Eastern European Jews as well as on the topics of interreligious dialog. Dr. Belkin has worked with such institutions as the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, the Fritz Bauer Institute and Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk. In 2019, Dr. Belkin took over the management of the Jewish-Muslim dialogue project “Schalom Aleikum” at the Central Council of Jews in Germany. In 2024, he was appointed to the board (managing director) of the newly established Nathan Peter Levinson Foundation.
Public Relations Officer
Ekaterina Kuznetsova has 12 years of professional experience in Jewish education and culture. She was born in Moscow, where she studied philology and later religious studies. There she worked as a project manager at the SEFER Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization. In 2014, she moved to Israel to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and graduated with an MA in Yiddish Studies in 2016. In the same year she moved to Berlin. Ekaterina Kuznetsova is a co-founder of the Yiddish.Berlin project and supports German and Israeli institutions in organizing events on Jewish culture. She speaks six languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish.
Executive Secretary
Lorenz Hegeler studied Catholic Theology and Empirical Cultural Studies (B.A.) and Interreligious Studies (M.A.) with a focus on Christian-Jewish dialog in Würzburg and Bamberg between 2017-2023. For two years, he worked as a project assistant at the “Denkfabrik Schalom Aleikum” of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, where he was involved in the content and organization of dialogue podiums and educational workshops. Since the establishment of the Nathan Peter Levinson Foundation in October 2024, he has been a speaker of the executive board. He is also completing a doctorate in modern history at the University of Potsdam on Jewish art as an opportunity for self-empowerment using the example of Rachel Wischnitzer.
Team Assistant
Yustyna studied German Studies at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv – once one of the most important centers in Jewish Eastern Europe. In 2021, she moved to Bamberg to do her master’s degree in literature and media studies at the Otto Friedrich University as a scholarship holder of the Hanns Seidel Foundation. In 2022-2024 she worked as a project assistant for BayBIDS, an initiative to promote cooperation between Bavarian universities and German schools abroad and partner schools. Since 2020, Yustyna has been involved in Bamberg:UA e. V., which is committed to medical care in Ukraine and the sustainable development of a cultural German-Ukrainian dialog. She was awarded the University of Bamberg’s prize for student engagement for this work. She also translates and edits texts for the German editorial team of the multimedia research project “Ukraïner”.
Student Assistant