Podcast Summary

Podcast: Ask Haviv Anything
Episode: 64 – The Soviet Roots of Today's Antizionism
Host: Haviv Rettig Gur
Guest: Izabella Tabarovsky
Date: November 28, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode investigates the history of Soviet antizionism, its ideological roots, and how Soviet propaganda shaped global perceptions of Zionism and antisemitism—traces that persist in today's discourse. Haviv Rettig Gur speaks with Izabella Tabarovsky, an expert on Soviet Jews and contemporary antisemitism, exploring the evolution from theoretical Soviet opposition to Zionism into the wide-reaching conspiracy-laden propaganda that still echoes in modern conversations about Israel and Jews globally.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Historical Stage: Soviet Attitudes to Jews and Zionism

• Early Soviet Ideology and Jews

  • Stalin’s 1913 article → denying Jews as a nation:
    “Stalin argues that Zionists are wrong when they say the Jews are a people. ...Soviets use every tool...to undermine the idea that Jews are a people. And it’s something that we hear echoes of today.”
    -- Izabella Tabarovsky [05:22]
  • Marxism’s focus on class over nationhood. Bolsheviks viewed Zionism as a challenge for Jewish loyalty, a rival to their vision of proletarian internationalism.

• Russian/Soviet Cycle: Integration & Oppression

  • Jews in the Russian Empire: “...for centuries, ...they were defined as a necessity. They were another nation, not Russians.” -- Haviv [06:40]
  • Early Soviet period provided “emancipation” from old restrictions but suppressed religious/national feeling.

2. Shift from Rational Opposition to Conspiracism

• Stalinist Antizionism Becomes Antisemitic Conspiracy

  • After 1948, Jewish enthusiasm for Israel stoked fears:
    “He sees the excitement that Soviet Jews express for the newly established Jewish state...triggers every kind of red flag for Stalin who is famously paranoid.” -- Izabella [16:50]
  • Events such as the Night of the Murdered Poets, the Prague Trials, and the “Doctor's Plot”:
    “The anti Zionism of the Soviet Union begins to acquire a conspiracist dimension.” -- Izabella [23:45]

• Transformation into State-Driven Propaganda

  • Zionism now labeled as “bourgeois nationalism,” “enemy of socialism,” “fifth column.”
  • Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda borrows from Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Nazi tropes, only in Marxist vocabulary.

3. Jewish Awakening and the Zionist Revival

• Post-Stalin Thaw & Return of Zionism

  • Khrushchev’s slight liberalization brought old Zionists back from the gulag; grassroots remembrance through maintaining Holocaust graves revitalized Jewish identity:
    “They organize this Jewish youth and they start taking them to these sites of mass murder...they just start cleaning them up.” -- Izabella [28:55]
  • Profound realization for many that “if we stay here, it will also be done to our people in the future.” -- Izabella quoting Josef Mendelevich [31:53]

• 1967: Six-Day War as Catalyst

  • Soviet Jews found pride and identity in Israel’s victory:
    “For the first time realize that there is something positive that can be attached to your Jewish identity...there’s just an incredible explosion of Jewish pride...” -- Izabella [46:54]

4. Soviet Global Propaganda and Its Legacy

• Industrial-Scale Information Warfare

  • The USSR deployed propaganda against Zionism globally, especially in the Third World, post-1967:
    “It was probably the most, the largest ideological export operation…in the history of propaganda, in the history of war, in the history of ideological contests.” -- Haviv [61:05]
  • Use of “front organizations” (World Peace Council, trade unions, international students’ groups) pushed messages equating Zionism with Nazism, apartheid, colonialism—tailored for different audiences.

• Spread into Western Academia

  • “Already in the early 70s, the global left is speaking in this language...it just became a default understanding...” -- Izabella [63:55]
  • Mahmoud Abbas’s Moscow doctorate, which claimed Zionist collaboration with Nazis, cited works of Soviet “Zionologists” and exemplified how Soviet narratives entered Arab and “Third World” intellectual circles.

• Persistence in Contemporary Discourse

  • Modern antizionist rhetoric—such as likening Israel to Nazis, “apartheid,” or “settler colonialists”—originates in Soviet 1970s propaganda:
    “None of them matter...all of them [the accusations]...are a sign that I’m not really being accused of being anything. I’m being accused of existing while being Jewish.” -- Haviv [54:19]
  • Language, tactics, and ideas cultivated by the Soviets became mainstream in academic and activist circles and increasingly dominate left-wing critiques of Israel.

5. Refuseniks, American Jews, and Lessons for Today

• Solidarity Movements

  • The Jewish “refusenik” movement and American Jewish solidarity are recalled as grassroots success stories:
    “American Jews really created a miracle through this campaign, working together with the refuse inside the country.” -- Izabella [52:55]
  • The importance of reclaiming authentic Jewish identity and narrative rather than surrendering to propaganda or victimhood.

• Contemporary Parallels and Warnings

  • Haviv and Izabella discuss the current campus climate, noting the recycling of Soviet-propaganda-style arguments:
    “When I listen to this discourse … I feel like I’m back in the USSR in the 1970s.” -- Izabella [56:33]
  • Both the far left and far right echoes of classic antisemitism threaten Jewish security.
  • Hope lies in grassroots Jewish resilience, drawing inspiration from refuseniks:
    “You don’t need a whole lot of them [heroes]...around those heroes, ...thousands...resisted at the family level...” -- Izabella [73:54]

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the Soviet Propaganda Machine:
  “They did it as a foundational tenet. They spent on it like they were building an army...a percentage of their economy.”
  – Haviv [61:05]

• On Soviet Theoretical Antizionism:
  “Your ties are not based on your ethnicity. ...They’re based on your class belonging. ...Zionists are essentially a competition for the loyalties of the Jewish masses.”
  – Izabella [09:06]

• On the Holocaust and Jewish Memory:
  “These graves are telling us, they’re whispering to us, don’t stay in this cursed land. Go to the land of your forefathers.”
  – Izabella (quoting Josef Mendelevich) [31:53]

• On Anti-Zionist Rhetoric of Today:
  “What we are dealing with...We are putting so much effort into debunking these arguments. They’re not arguments. They were created as propaganda for specific geopolitical purposes of one particular empire in the 20th century.”
  – Izabella [56:33]

Important Timestamps

• [05:22] – Introduction to Stalin’s early anti-Zionism and Marxist rationale
• [16:50] – Transition from pragmatic to conspiratorial anti-Zionism post-Israel
• [28:55] – Revival of Soviet Zionism post-Khrushchev Thaw; memory activism
• [46:54] – The 1967 war, Soviet Jewry’s awakening, global resonance
• [54:19] – The logic and deployment of Soviet propaganda, and its global reach
• [61:05] – Scale and structure of Soviet information war
• [63:55] – Propaganda’s arrival in Western academia and society
• [73:54] – Refusenik legacy, grassroots hope, and the contemporary fight for dignity

Tone & Language

The episode is both analytical and personal, blending scholarly detail (especially from Tabarovsky) with reflective, at times wry, commentary from Gur. The mood is urgent but not defeatist, emphasizing both the daunting scale of antisemitic propaganda and the historical record of Jewish resilience and renewal.

Conclusion

The episode makes a compelling case that much of today's antizionist rhetoric is rooted not in a spontaneous critique of Israel or humanitarian concern, but in a deliberate, decades-long Soviet campaign that weaponized the language of anti-imperialism and human rights. Recognizing this provenance is crucial for understanding the dynamics on college campuses, in mainstream institutions, and in global debates about Israel and Jewish identity. The conversation concludes on a note of cautious optimism, grounded in the capacity for renewed grassroots Jewish agency and solidarity, drawing inspiration from the history of Soviet Jewry and its American allies.