Annabel Gottfried Cohen

is a historian researching the Communist International and transnational anti-fascism in the 1930s and 40s. She has a Masters in Historical Research with distinction from the University of London, for which she was awarded a prize for her dissertation on the International Brigades, and is now working towards her PhD. A graduate of the Paris Yiddish Center’s Yiddish immersion program, Annabel is also a Yiddish teacher and a translator of Yiddish to English. Her website on Ashkenazi women’s customs www.pullingatthreads.com — which began as a research project at the Paris Yiddish Center — has received considerable attention, appearing on multiple university syllabuses and used by communities seeking to revive these practices. 

David E. Fishman

is a professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary, teaching courses in modern Jewish history. Dr. Fishman also serves as director of Project Judaica, JTS’s program in Ukraine, which is based at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy University. He directs its Jewish Archival Survey, which publishes guides to Jewish archival materials in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Elissa Bemporad

is Professor of History and Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History at Queens College and the Graduate Center- CUNY. She is a two-time winnder of the National Jewish Book Award. Bemporad is the author of three monographs, including Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford University Press, 2019), and most recently Revolution, Civil War, and New Ways of Life, volume I of the Comprehensive History of Soviet Jewry (New York University Press, 2025). She is the editor of several volumes, including Pogroms: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 2021) and The Destruction of Dubova: Chronicle of a Dead City (Bloomsbury, 2025). Dr. Bemporad’s work has appeared in French, Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, and Russian.