Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
‘Soviet anti-Zionism: history and legacy’ – BISA online seminar
Date: 21 October 2026
Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm BST
Location: Online – the joining link will be sent the day before the event
Speaker: Anna Shternshis, University of Toronto
Free seminar for scholars. Book here or contact bisa@bbk.ac.uk for further information.
This seminar examines the writings of Soviet anti-Zionist authors such as Evgenii Evseev; Yuri Ivanov, author of Be Careful, Zionism (1969); and T. Klimenko, who published Zionism Is Genocide in Action. It analyses both the content of their arguments and their reception within Soviet society—among Jews and non-Jews alike. It further examines state-supported literature and examples of popular culture, namely songs by Alexander Galich and Vladimir Vysotsky that parodied Soviet anti-Zionist messages. Ultimately, the paper asks why anti-Zionist ideas found little resonance in the Soviet Union of the 1970s, yet appear to resonate powerfully among many Jews and non-Jews in contemporary North America.
Anna Shternshis is Professor and J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies and Director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the author of three monographs—Soviet and Kosher (Indiana University Press, 2006), When Sonia Met Boris (Oxford University Press, 2021), and Jews in the Soviet Union, A History: Postwar life, Hopes and Fears, 1945–1953 (NYU Press, 2026) and more than thirty refereed articles and book chapters in leading journals and edited volumes. Her work has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the President’s Impact Award at the University of Toronto, and the Fiddler on the Roof Award in Russia. She has presented her research across North America, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Australia, and Latin America.