The Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies has launched a research project on the Jewish diaspora and emigration from the former USSR

The Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies (IEAJS — a project of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress) has launched an initiative to study the recent wave of emigration from the former USSR and the transnational post-Soviet Jewish diaspora. The project was officially inaugurated in February 2025, supported by the Academic Director of the IEAJS, Prof. Ze'ev Khanin, and the Executive Vice President of the Institute and Director General of the EAJC, Dr. Chaim Ben Yakov.

Led by new immigrant Prof. Evgeny Smirnov, with academic oversight provided by Dr. Mikhail Men, this new initiative aims to conduct comparative academic and applied research on Jewish and other communities of immigrants and emigrants from the former USSR residing in Israel and the global diaspora.

In the initial months since its inception, the project has convened several socio-academic events. Notably, the preliminary research findings were presented at a round table in Ashdod, organized by Dr. Elina Bardach-Yalov (PhD in Sociology), focusing on the integration of the 2022–2025 "war aliyah" in Israel. Furthermore, several research initiatives have commenced, including a study examining the identity, motivations, and future outlook of emigrants from the former USSR over the past decade.

Another ongoing study addresses a relatively recent phenomenon: "Russian-speaking" Jews, primarily comprising emigrants from the former USSR of various waves, who reside with varying degrees of permanence in Cyprus. Subsequent phases of the project will focus on researching communities of new Jewish emigrants settled in Central and Eastern Europe.