Expert Bio

Izabella Tabarovsky is the Kennan Institute Senior Advisor on Regional Partnerships and Programming. She oversees the Institute’s regional partnerships and programming, it's independent journalism initiatives, and its Historical Memory initiative. She manages the Kennan Institute’s Russia File, Focus Ukraine, and In Other Words blogs, and co-hosts its Russia File podcast. She has coordinated Kennan’s U.S.-Israel working group on Russia in the Middle East, Kennan’s alumni conferences, and other initiatives and events. Her research expertise includes politics of historical memory, Russia's independent media, 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.

Major Publications

Holocaust / Politics of Historical Memory

• “Russia's Lost War,” The Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2020 
• “Putin’s New Propaganda Campaign Turns Jews into a Prop,” Forward, January 2020
• "Most Jews Weren't Murdered in Death Camps. It's Time To Talk About The Other Holocaust," Forward, June 2019
• "Russia's Strange Obsession with Sobibor," Russia File, May 2018
• “Is Ukraine’s Holocaust Memorial at Babi Yar in Trouble?” Tablet, January 2018
• “Eastern Europe’s Dark Past Could Hinder Its Future,” The National Interest, November 2017
• “How Trump Fed Polish Nationalists’ Selective Memory,” The National Interest, July 2017
• “In Russia’s World War II Commemorations, the Holocaust Remains an Unexamined Narrative,” Russia File, June 2017. (The Russian translation of the piece, “Забытый Холокост,” was published on Intersection.) 
• “The Forgotten Holocaust: The Films of Boris Maftsir,” Tablet, January 2017
• “Babi Yar: The Holocaust as a Final Solution Began Here,” Newsweek, September 2016
• “Lev Simkin: The Holocaust Began in Ukraine,” Kennan Institute, June 2016

Antisemitism

• "A Letter to Golda," Tablet, November 2019.
• “Senator Sanders, Fighting Anti-Semitism Requires Actions, not Just Universalist Promises,” Forward, November 2019
• "Book Review | A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism," Fathom Journal, October 2019
• "The Left Can No Longer Excuse Its Anti-Semitism," Forward, August 2019
• "Understanding the Real Origin of that New York Times Cartoon: How anti-Semitic Soviet propaganda informs contemporary left anti-Zionism," Tablet, June 2019
• "To understand Labour antisemitism, go back to the USSR's giant anti-Zionism campaign," Jewish Chronicle, May 2019
• "Soviet Anti-Zionism and Contemporary Left Antisemitism," Fathom, May 2019
• "We Soviet Jews Lived Through State-Sponsored Anti-Zionism. We Know How It Is Weaponized." The Forward, March 2019

Cold War History / Soviet Jewry

• “The New Refuseniks,” Tablet, June 2021 
• “What My Soviet Life Has Taught Me About Censorship and Why It Makes Us Dumb,” Areo, May 2021 
• “Hijacking History” Tablet, December 2020 
• “The American Jewish Soviet Experience” Tablet, October 2020 
• “The American Soviet Mentality,” Tablet, June 2020 
• "The liberation fight for Soviet Jews was a miracle. Most of us didn't know about it," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 2019
• “Americans in the USSR: Changing Hearts and Minds in the Midst of the Cold War,” Russia File, July 2017
• "Walking in Each Other’s Shoes: Through the Iron Curtain and Back,” Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2016
• "A Tribe of Exhibit People: American Guides Recall Soviet Journey,” Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2016
• “Portraits from the Détente Era,” Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2016

Stalin’s Repressions

• “How ‘The New York Times’ Helped Hide Stalin’s Mass Murders in Ukraine,” Tablet, October 2020
• “Forging Hope in Exile: Interview with Guzel Yakhina, Author of ‘Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes’,” Russia File, June 2019
• "History Must Be Measured in Human Beings," Russia File, December 2018
• “Why Trump’s Holocaust Statement Was So Offensive,” Newsweek, February 2017
• “Why Are Memories of Stalin’s Terror Being Buried?” Newsweek, December 2016
• “The Price of Silence: Family Memory of Stalin’s Repressions,” Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2016

Other

• "Russian-Speaking Israelis Go to the Polls," Russia File, April 2019
•  “What Ukraine Can Learn from Other Countries’ Experience with PTSD,” Kennan Cable, January 2016
• “In Kyiv, the Front is a Phone Call Away,” Kennan Cable, November 2014
• “The Latent Power of Health Cooperation in U.S.-Russian Relations,” Science & Diplomacy, June 2013, co-authored with Matthew Rojansky
• “A Quiet Force: Health Cooperation in U.S.-Russian Relations,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 2013