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Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on IHeartRadio.

My guest today is Isabella Taborovsky.

Isabella is a scholar of Soviet anti-Zionism and contemporary anti-Semitism, a senior fellow with the Z3 Institute,

a fellow with the Wilson Center, a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine, and the author of an excellent new book,

Beir Refusnik, a Jewish student survival guide. You can follow Isabella on X at Issa Tabaro.

Hi, Isabella. So nice to have you on. It's so great to be with you, Carol. So I feel like we have a lot in common, clearly, an affinity because of our backgrounds, and I've always enjoyed your work. Tell us about your new book, Be a Refusnik. First of all, tell my audience, what does it mean to be a refusnik? So a refusnik, the term refusnik was given to Soviet Jewish activists in the late

60s, 70s, and they fought for their rights as Jews. And they're mostly known, and they're

known in America because American Jews fought on their behalf. And they're mostly known, and they're known in America because American

Jews fought on their behalf. But they're usually associated with a movement for immigration,

the immigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR. And the term comes from their, you know,

people couldn't emigrate from the USSR. But when they applied to emigrate, they were refused the permission and

therefore they were called refused, Nick. However, there is a different way to look at the term and to

understand it. What they refused, it's not that the system refused them the right to emigrate. Before

that even happened, they refused the system. They refused the anti-Semitic system. They lived in. They refused the environment. They rejected all of it. And it was an environment in which they were supposed to forget about their Jewish identity, their connection to the Jewish people, their connection to the land of Israel, they were supposed

to reject their Zionism. And so they refused all of it. And this was really the essence of their

struggle. And I think their story is incredibly relevant for the current moment. Did you always

want to be a writer?

Did I always? Wow, that's a really great question.

I think, I don't know if I ever thought about it until a really wonderful person, Yossi Klein-Halevi, told me that I have a story to tell.

And I can tell that story and I should do it.

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