Bruk Natalia (born August 15, 1956, Iriklinskiy settlement, Novo-Orsk District, Orenburg Region) – translator, librarian.
In 1979, she graduated from the Latvian State University, Department of French Language and Literature. In 1990, she earned a Master's degree in Library Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Prior to immigrating to Israel on May 28, 1980, Natalia Bruk lived in Riga. She worked as a tour guide for the Sputnik travel agency and at the Institute of Marine Geology. She lost both jobs due to KGB interference (her husband Leonid Rudin was interrogated, and she participated in Jewish activities, including teaching Hebrew).
Her family received permission to emigrate shortly before the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She immigrated to Israel with her husband L. Rudin, daughter Marina, and mother T. Brook. The family lived in Ra’anana for two years and moved to Jerusalem in 1982.
In Israel, Bruk retrained as a librarian and from 1981 to 1991 worked in school and municipal libraries in Herzliya and Jerusalem, serving as a librarian and library director. Simultaneously, from 1983 to 1991, she worked for the Ministry of Absorption as coordinator of the USSR Liaison Unit in the Department of Scientist Absorption.
In her early years in Israel, she also translated from French for the Russian-language press and subtitled French films.
In March 1991, immediately after the “Desert Storm” war, she was sent to Leningrad as an aliyah representative of the Jewish Agency “Sokhnut.” In 1992, she was assigned to Ukraine and soon became the chief aliyah representative there, holding the position until 1996.
After returning to Israel, she served from 1996 to 2001 as director of the Russia, Belarus, and Baltic States Division in the Aliyah and Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency “Sokhnut.”
After her work at “Sokhnut,” Natalia Bruk returned to librarianship and worked as the director of one of Jerusalem’s Hebrew-language municipal libraries in the school outreach department.
Bruk considered her time at “Sokhnut” the most important, interesting, and fulfilling period of her career. She succeeded in bringing many innovations to aliyah-related organizational work. She states: “I would call it practical Zionism. One simply could not hold such a position and be engaged in immigration and its encouragement without having personal life principles aligned with this mission.”
Throughout nearly all her years in Israel, Natalia Bruk was active in volunteer work—helping those in need, sometimes within official frameworks (e.g., the municipal information center during the First Lebanon War and the Gulf War), but more often on her own initiative.
Natalia Bruk was married to Leonid Rudin from 1976 to 1992.
She raised three children on her own (at the time of the divorce, daughter Marina was 15, and the youngest son, Shay, was 8). Her children currently reside in Tel Aviv.