PSCRP Research Fellows
Dr. Elina Bardach-Yalov, a former Israeli Knesset Member, is an affiliated research fellow at the PSCR Program, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University. She holds her Ph.D. in mass communications from the University of Leeds, UK. In the past she also served as an advisor to Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Press-secretary of the Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. She currently teaches in the Jerusalem Adassa College and is a Research Associate at Ariel University of Samaria.
Dr. Nati Cantorovich, is Director, Information and Research Department, “Nativ” Organization of the Israeli Prime-Minister’s Office, Jerusalem. His research focuses on Soviet and Post-Soviet Jewish History; Israeli-Soviet relations; Antisemitism, nationalism and the racial intolerance in the Soviet Union and the successor states. cantorovich@gmail.com
Dr. Velvl Chernin, a social anthropologist and ethnographer, is Affiliated Research Fellow, Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program at the BESA Center. He is a graduate of the Department of Ethnography of the Moscow State University and got his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He previously taught in Jewish Literature and Culture at the Universities of Beer-Seva, Bar-Ilan and Ariel, as well as Moscow State University, and also served as the Jewish Agency Envoy on Jewish Education in Russia and Belarus and than as Executive Vice-President of the Russian Jewish Congress.
Prof. Robert Freedman (PhD in International Relations, Columbia University) is a leading U.S. expert on Israel, the Middle East, and American foreign policy. He is a former President, and currently Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Baltimore Hebrew University and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches courses on the Arab–Israeli conflict and on Russian foreign policy. He is the author or editor of several books, including Contemporary Israel (Westview Press). rofreedman@comcast.net
Alex Greenberg is a PhD candidate at the Tel-Aviv University Department of Middle Eastern History. He got MA in Middle East and Islamic studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Capt. (res.) in the IDF Military Intelligence research department. Expert on Iran and Southern Caucasus sagrinb@gmail.com
Prof. Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman (PhD, Dr.Sc.) affiliated research fellow at the PSCR Program, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University. Expert on Central Asia and Afghanistan, Russia’s foreign and security policy, and energy policy. He has previously worked in the Moscow Higher School of Economics, Moscow state institute of international relations, the European University Institute (Italy) and served as a Visiting Scholar at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (Germany). His publications include 5 authored books (including A “Great Game” with Unknown Rules: World Politics and Central Asia, 2008 and International Networks of Jihadism: Central Asia, Caucasus, Middle East and Afghanistan, 2019), several edited collections and numerous articles in refereed academic journals. weissmanandrei@gmail.com
Prof. Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin is the Head of the BESA Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program (PSCRP) and teaches Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University. In 2009-2022 he also served as Chief Scientist (chief scholarly expert and Deputy Director-General for research) of the Israeli Ministry of Aliya and Integration. Since 2018 he also serves as the Academic Chairman of the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies, established by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. His research interests focus on Russian-speaking Jewish community in Israel and the Diaspora and the Israel-FSU relations and politics. His academic publications include several books (the most recent is From Russia to Israel… And Back? Contemporary Transnational Russian Israeli Diaspora, Berlin and Boston, 2022), edited collections and numerous articles on Israeli, East European, Jewish and African politics and society zeevkh@yahoo.com; khaninz@biu.ac.il
Dr. Petr Oskolkov is an affiliated research fellow at the Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program (PSCRP) in BESA and Post-Doctorate researcher at Ariel University of Samaria. Previously, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the MGIMO University of International Relations and Lomonosov Moscow State University. His research focuses on ethnic politics, nationalist movements, and right-wing political parties. Dr. Oskolkov’s academic publications include two individual monographs, a number of co-edited volumes (including Transforming the Administrative Matryoshka: The Reform of Autonomous Okrugs in the Russian Federation, 2003–2008. Stuttgart, 2022), and numerous articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. elsztejn@yahoo.com
Joseph Epstein is the Director of Legislative Affairs for the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) and a Washington, DC-based analyst focusing on Eurasia and the Middle East. He is a contributing writer for Newsweek and has also been published in Foreign Policy, Novaya Gazeta, The National Interest, the Daily Beast and other publications. Prior to EMET, Epstein worked as a journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia and served in the Israeli military. A graduate of Columbia University, where he studied Political Science and Soviet Studies, Joseph is fluent in Russian and Hebrew.
PSCRP Affiliated Authors
Dr. Sam Kliger serves as the Director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs of the American Jewish Committee (Washington). He is also the founding president of the Institute for Research on New Americans (RINA) in New York, and a member of the International Academic Council, Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies (IEAJC) in Herzliya, Israel.
Ariel Kogan is an Israeli member of international forum of independent researchers on contemporary post-Soviet politics and society. He is affiliated with the Institute of Applied Ethnopolitical Research (Kazakhstan) and MPIC Center (Georgia). He is also a columnist for I24news and Ynet in Israel.
Dr. Konstantin Pakhalyuk previously served as Associate Professor, European University in St. Petersburg and Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and as Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Education, The Russian Military Historical Society, Moscow. His academic interests include the Holocaust Studies, memory politics, international relations, discourse analysis, political theory and philosophy; the World War I and II history and modern Russian studies. kopak1914@gmail.com
Gela Vasadze is a Tbilisi and Batumi-based Georgian political analyst and broadcaster. He is the Head of Regional Programs at the Georgian Strategic Analysis Center in Tbilisi
Alexander Verkhovsky is Director of the SOVA Research Center – a Moscow-based independent initiative that focuses on nationalism and xenophobia, the relationship between religion and society, and the formation and implementation of anti-extremist policy in Russia.
Viktor Denisenko is an Associate Professor and head of the Centre for Communication Influences and Propaganda Research at Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University. He earned his PhD in Communication and Information in 2016 from Vilnius University. The field of his scientific and professional interests includes propaganda, information warfare, strategic and political communication. Viktor Denisenko is the author of the book “In the Encirclement of Propaganda” (in Lithuanian language, Vilnius University Press, 2021)»
Alexander Shpunt is an Israeli-Russian researcher and expert in theory and practice of information and analytical work in the field of politics. Since 2016 he served as a professor at the National Research University “Moscow Higher School of Economics”, and in 1999 – 2011 as the Executive Director of the “Effective Policy Foundation,” the largest think tank in the RF at that time. In 2011, he became the founding head of the Institute of Political Analysis Tools, specializing in systems for monitoring political behavior.