Zvi Gitelman

Zvi Gitelman  is Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is also a Research Scientist at the Center for Russian and East European Studies. His current research is on ethnicity and politics. He is especially interested in how states manage multi-ethnic societies, with special reference to the experience of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. He is also conducting an empirical study of ethnic identities among Jews in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and the United States. A third project is the collection, analysis, editing and publication of oral histories of Soviet Jewish veterans of World War Two. The project aims to fill in 'blank spots' in Soviet history and to understand ethnic relations and ethnic motivations in the Soviet armed forces during the war. His publications include Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics (1972),Becoming Israelis: Political Resocialization of Soviet and American Immigrants (1982), A Century of Ambivalence: the Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present (1988; 2001), Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (1997), and, as editor, Jewish Life after the USSR (2003).