I completed my doctorate at the School of History at Tel-Aviv University, the Department of Middle Eastern and African History. However, my research subject goes well beyond the traditional scope of this field. In my PhD project I dealt with Jewish-Muslim relations in Soviet Central Asia. I may best be described as a historian specializing in the Jewish history of the Middle East and Eurasia (The Southern parts of the Russian Empire, USSR – The Muslim Republics) in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Within this field I have dealt with the history of various Jewish groups and their interactions vis a vis their Muslim neighbors. During my Post-Doctorate I conducted research on Jewish and non-Jewish refugee populations in Central Asia and Siberia during World War II, uncovering a less-studied chapter of the Holocaust and war behind the front lines.

For the last five years I was teaching various courses at the Hebrew and Tel Aviv Universities. These courses dealt with Islam in Russia, the Soviet Union and the Successor Republics, Minority relations and Jewish History in the Soviet Union.

Publications:

Book

Reclaiming the Hungry Steppe: Soviet Administration and Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917-1939 (Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, 2012). (Hebrew) English version of this monograph is planned to be published by Brill Academic Publishers in 2014

Articles and Chapters

• "Antisemitism and the Jewish Refugees in Soviet Kirgizia 1942", Jews in Russia and in Eastern Europe, 1(50), Summer, 2003.
• "How it all began: Bukharan Jews and the Soviets in Central Asia, 1917– 1932", eds. Ingeborg Baldauf, Moshe Gammer and Thomas Loy, Bukharan Jews in the 20th century: History, Experience and Narration (Reichert-Verlag Wiesbaden, 2008).
• "The Khujum and the Bukharan Jewish Women", eds. Christa Hammerle, Nikola Langreiter, Edith Saurer, Gender Politics in Central Asia, L'HOMME Shriften 18 (Bohlau-Verlag Koln, 2008). "History of Bukharan-Jewish Press in USSR", Kesher, 37, 2008. (Hebrew)
• "Soviet language policy and the Nations of the Soviet East, a case study: Sovietization of Bukharan-Jewish language", eds. Dominique Arel, Juliette Cadiot, Larissa Zakharova , Cacophonie d’empire. Le gouvernement des langues dans l’empire russe, en URSS et dans les États post-soviétiques (Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2010 (French)
• "Bukharian Jewry under Russian Rule", eds. Israel Bartal and Ilia Lurie, History of the Jews in Russia, Volume II: The Jews in Czarist Russia, (Zalman Shazar, and Gesharim, Jerusalem, 2012). (Hebrew and Russian)
• " Bukharan-Jewish Language (Judeo-Tajik): Transformations and Adaptations during the Twentieth Century", Pea'mim, 136, 2013. (Hebrew).