From the USSR to American Campuses: The Roots of Today’s Antizionist Discourse
APRIL 27 Reception 6:15pm, Program 7pm to 8:30 | College Park, MD
Co-Sponsored with NoVaChai
Join us for an eye-opening program exploring how Soviet antizionist ideas continue to shape the language and dynamics of anti-Israel discourse today.
The evening will begin with a short documentary, A Special Russian Truth, which traces the origins of today’s anti-Israel rhetoric to a decades-long Soviet campaign of antisemitic propaganda developed by the KGB and disseminated worldwide.
Following the film, journalist Karys Rhea will speak with Izabella Tabarovsky, a leading scholar and journalist tracing the origins and evolution of Soviet antizionist propaganda and active measures, about how those ideological frameworks continue to serve today’s anti-Israel movement—and why their impact has become especially visible in the wake of October 7.
Drawing on her new book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, Tabarovsky will also explore the striking parallels between the models of resistance developed by Soviet Jewish activists known as refuseniks and young American Jewish activists today, offering a framework for understanding and responding to this moment.
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About Izabella Tabarovsky
Izabella Tabarovsky examines how Soviet propaganda shaped the ideological language of contemporary antizionism, how its legacy continues to shape discourse about Israel and Jews today and how Soviet Jewish models of courage and defiance can inform responses to antisemitism on campus and beyond. She is the author of Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide and a sought-after international speaker.
She has lectured at universities, policy forums and national institutions in the United States and abroad, including Georgetown University, the London School of Economics, and Yad Vashem; delivered a keynote at the Parliament of Finland; and testified before the U.S. Helsinki Commission.
She is a Senior Fellow at the Z3 Institute (Palo Alto) and a Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC), the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism, University of Haifa.
A contributing writer at Tablet, she has also published in Newsweek, Sapir, Quillette and Fathom. She has appeared on the Haviv Rettig Gur’s Ask Haviv podcast, Wondering Jews with Noam Weissman and Michal Bitton and the Karol Markowicz Show, among others.
Her essays appear in multiple edited volumes published by Routledge, Academic Studies Press and others. Her work has been translated into numerous languages.
About Karys Rhea
Karys Rhea is an American political commentator and former producer at the Epoch Times and Newsmax. A writing fellow with the Middle East Forum, delegate for Israel365 Action, rising leader at the Global Liberty Institute, and recording artist on Baste Distribution, she is currently writing a book about how right-wing identitarianism is undermining President Trump’s vision, fracturing the MAGA movement, and jeopardizing the soul of America. It will be out in 2026 on Wicked Son Publishing. You can find Karys on X @rheakarys.