Yelena Shmulenson grew up in Ukraine and emigrated to the US with her family in the 1990s. She is perhaps best known for killing a dybbuk in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man.

TV: Orange Is the New Black (recurring), Boardwalk Empire, Chicago Med, Madam Secretary, Blue Bloods. FILM: The Good Shepherd, Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, Chinese Puzzle (with Audrey Tautou).

STAGE: “The Golem of Havana” (NY/Miami), “The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum” (NY/Stockholm/Bucharest), “Covers”, “Knock, “Old New Year” and “Bad Roads” with the Lost&Found Project, “Fiddler on the Roof” (Axelrod PAC), “The Singing Windmills”, “Enemies: A Love Story” (STEPS Theater), “Tevye Served Raw” (NY/Bucharest/Dresden), etc.

Yelena is also a Russian/Yiddish translator/coach for numerous projects and an audiobook narrator.