Tel Aviv University Hosts Presentation of Volume on Soviet-Israeli Relations

Tel Aviv University (TAU) hosted a conference and the presentation of the four-volume publication «Documents on Israeli–Soviet Relations, 1954–1967» — a joint academic project of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies at Tel Aviv University. The conference, along with the preparation and publication of the collection, was supported by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC).

The event featured speeches by the Head of the Public Diplomacy Directorate and Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel Dr. Yacov Livne, Director General of the EAJC Dr. Haim Ben Yakov, Head of the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies at TAU Prof. Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, and Head of the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies at TAU Prof. Vera Kaplan.

Among the speakers were also the co-editors of the collection: a pioneer of the Israeli academic school of Soviet and East European history Prof. Yaacov Ro'i, former Director of the Israel State Archives Dr. Yehoshua Freundlich, and Dr. Boris Morozov, author of several books on the history of Jewish emigration, researcher at the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies at TAU, and member of the Academic Board of the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies (IEAJS).

Additionally, presentations were delivered by Prof. Dmitry Adamsky of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University, Prof. Amir Weiner, Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Stanford University, and Dr. Dmitry Asinovsky, a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University.

The publication «Documents on Israeli–Soviet Relations, 1954–1967» was released in the summer of 2025. The volume was compiled by historians of international relations Prof. Yaacov Ro'i (Editor-in-Chief), Dr. Yehoshua Freundlich, and Dr. Boris Morozov. The series is based on more than 600 archival documents from Israeli and Russian archives, the majority of which are published for the first time. This publication serves as a continuation of the project covering the period from 1941 to 1953, which was published in 2000.

The series covers and details the most dramatic and turbulent periods in the history of relations between the USSR and the State of Israel: from the restoration of diplomatic ties after the first rupture in 1953 to their cooling in the wake of the Suez Crisis; from the confrontation leading up to the Six-Day War to the final severing of diplomatic relations in June 1967; and from the struggle of Soviet Jews for the right to emigrate from the USSR to the formation of a mass movement in their support in Israel and the West. Special attention is dedicated to the interactions of the Israeli Embassy in Moscow with Soviet Jews and Israel's role in the Middle East policy of the USSR.

The EAJC remains committed to supporting academic projects in the field of Israeli and Soviet Jewish history, regarding the preservation of cultural and historical heritage as one of its primary missions.