The explosion of anti-Israel demonization on the left in the wake of October 7 caught many by surprise. But the language equating Zionism with Nazism, fascism, racism, imperialism, settler-colonialism and apartheid has been a conventional part of far-left discourse since that late 1960s. Originating from the USSR, it got transferred to the global left via numerous channels of influences, including Soviet-financed communist parties, leftist publications, diplomatic channels, the Third World, and various international organizations. It’s impossible to understand the specific language and explanatory logic of anti-Zionist demonization deployed by the far-left today without understanding its roots in Soviet global propaganda and disinformation campaigns.
This course will survey the history of Soviet antizionist propaganda and its role in the broad Soviet information warfare against the West. We’ll cover the evolution of Soviet antizionism from the early days of Bolshevism to Brezhnev and discuss the channels Moscow used to inculcate it among the global left. We’ll examine why the language of far-left anti-Israel demonization tracks so closely with far-right antisemitic conspiracy tropes, effectively landing the far-left on the same page as the neo-Nazis and white supremacists. We’ll also look at some aspects of Soviet Jewish history to gain a better understanding of what happens to Jews when the broader society adopts antizionism as its dominant ideology. Finally, we’ll discuss models of resistance developed by Soviet Jews and how we can apply them today.
Session 1: Soviet Antizionism and Contemporary Left Antisemitism: An Overview
This lecture will provide a brief historical overview of Soviet antizionist propaganda and disinformation.
Session 2: Demonization Blueprints: Inculcating Antizionist Ideology among the Global Left
In this lecture we’ll discuss how Moscow inculcated its antizionist tropes among the global left to turn extreme anti-Israel stance into the far-left’s default position that is part and parcel of its anti-Western ideology.
Session 3: Antizionism Is Antisemitism: Learning from the Soviet Jewish Experience
In this lecture we’ll discuss aspects of Soviet Jewish experience and what it teaches us about the ultimately impact of antizionist ideology on Jewish communities.
Session 4: In Search of New Jewish Role Models: the Refuseniks and the Soviet Jewry Movement
In this lecture we’ll discuss Soviet Jews’ models of resistance against antizionist antisemitism and what we can learn from them today.
Spring 2025
Online
4
February 18, February 25, March 4, March 11 2025
Tuesdays , 11:00AM - 12:30PM EST
Izabella Tabarovsky is a Senior Program Associate at the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center, and a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine. Her research and writing focus on Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism, Soviet Jewry, Holocaust in the USSR, Stalin’s repressions, and politics of historical memory. She oversees the Institute’s Historical Memory research and programming, manages its Russia File and Focus Ukraine blogs, and coordinates its U.S.-Israel working group on Russia in the Middle East. Her expertise includes the politics of historical memory in the post-communist space, the Holocaust, Stalin’s repressions, and Soviet and contemporary left antisemitism. Her previous engagements include the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; and Cambridge Energy Research Associates. She has served as an associate producer on the critically acclaimed PBS documentary “Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy,” and worked on PBS/Frontline documentary “The Age of AIDS” and at “On Point,” an acclaimed NPR talk-show. Izabella holds a Master of Arts degree in Russian History from Harvard University and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is a native Russian speaker with working knowledge of Hebrew, Spanish, French, and German. Her writings have been published in Newsweek, The National Interest, Tablet, Forward, Times of Israel, Fathom, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and others.
