Leonid (Leon) Gershovich

Leonid holds a PhD degree from Tel-Aviv University. His thesis was titled – “Jews and Jewish Life in South-East Belarus (Gomel and surroundings) during the Interwar Years (1917-1941)”. The research deals with Jewish life in south-eastern Belarus in case of Gomel (Homel) during the interwar period (1917-1941) which is considered transformative for the Jews of Belarus, as well as for the Soviet Jewry in general.

During the years 2017-2019 he used to work in The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Centre. Previously he studied in Revivim program in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning BA in Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible and MA in Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry studies.

Today, he is an independent researcher and educator. Currently he is a vocational high school principal (till the end of august 2025). Prior to the summer 2024 he was a teacher of Hebrew Bible and History.

His academic fields of interest include mainly pre-Soviet Jewry, Soviet-Jewry, Holocaust in the USSR, world-wide struggle for Soviet Jewry, Zionist and Jewish National movement in the USSR, post-Soviet Jewry in FSU, Israel and world-wide, and of course – antisemitism in the USSR and the post-Soviet countries. Following the full-scale invasion of Russia to Ukraine he published research as ACTA paper by SICSA (HUJI) titled – ‘Anti-Semitism in the propaganda and public discourse in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus during the Russia-Ukraine war (February – August 2022)’.

Following the “Iron Swords” war (including Israeli military operations and strikes in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran), he has a special interest in the issue of intersection and mutual influences of different antisemitic sub-narratives.

This intersection and mutual influences lead to the revival of the Soviet narrative in its contemporary version in relation to Zionism, the State of Israel and, by implication, the Jewish people in the discourse in the Russian-speaking region (in the Russian Federation and other regions affected by the discourse emanating from it). This narrative is expressed both in official discourse, as expressed in the statements of officials, in the propaganda programs on the state television channels (or those subordinate to the state in practice) and in the press, as well as in the popular discourse in the social media. he is working on the phenomena of the mutual influence, the repeated feeding, of hostile elements towards Jews in the propaganda effort and in the discourse between the Russian-speaking region and the Arab and Muslim region; in other words, to what extent there is a mutual influence, which existed during the Soviet period, as well as at this time and against the background of the current wars.