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Language, Food and Memory: Jewish Heritage and Identity from Odesa to Siberia and beyond
Wed 26 February 202526 Feb 2025 
06:3008:00 PM
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Description

Join Marina Sapritsky-Nahum and Alissa Timoshkina for a conversation with Nadia Ragozhina about the evolution of Jewish heritage and identity in Russia and Ukraine, and the influence of Soviet hegemony, anti-Semitism and migration. Sapritsky-Nahum and Timoshkina will look in particular at the role language and food culture have played in preserving heritage among communities as well as the new, post-Soviet Jewish traditions that have evolved through the diaspora experience of migration, adaptability, resilience and change.  

In her recently published book, Jewish Odesa: Negotiating Identities and Traditions in Contemporary Ukraine, Sapritsky-Nahum considers how the role of Russian language and culture, alongside lingering memories of the Soviet era, have been critically re-evaluated in Ukraine’s modern history. The book subsequently explores how this has led to new forms of expression for Odesa's Jewish community within the broader Ukrainian national context. 

In her forthcoming book, Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe, Timoshkina celebrates the humble vegetables that have shaped some of the most vibrant culinary traditions in Eastern Europe. Kapusta builds on Timoshkina’s previous writing on (and cooking of) Ashkenazi food to explore how her own identity was shaped by Jewish and Ukrainian food of her childhood. 

 

Speakers
Marina Sapritsky-Nahum

Marina Sapritsky-Nahum is an honorary researcher at University College London (UCL) and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). A social anthropologist, her work focuses on post-Soviet Jewish communities, religion, migration, philanthropy and urban culture. Her research, which concentrates geographically on Ukraine and its diaspora communities abroad, brings together anthropology, history and Jewish studies. She is particularly interested in the process of religious revival and community-building in the aftermath of state socialism, and how these changes affect social relations and city life.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sapritsky-Nahum has been writing about the effects of war on the everyday lives of Ukrainian Jews – both those who remain in the country and of those who have fled to Europe and the UK – as well as the fragmentation and remaking of historical narratives.

Alissa Timoshkina

Alissa Timoshkina is a London-based food writer and historian specialising in Eastern European food culture. Originally from Siberia, her family’s Ukrainian-Jewish lineage forms an important part of her culinary writing. Before turning to food, Timoshkina studied film history and gained a PhD in the field of Soviet film and Holocaust history from the University of London. 2019 saw the release of her debut cookbook Salt and Time: Recipes from a Russian Kitchen. In 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Alissa initiated a global fundraising campaign #CookForUkraine together with her Ukrainian chef friend, Olia Hercules. The campaign raised over £2.5 million for Ukraine. Her new cookbook, Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe will be released on 20 February 2025.

Nadia Ragozhina

Nadia Ragozhina is a senior journalist at BBC News who has worked as an international news journalist and producer for over 20 years. Her curiosity about her Jewish heritage and identity growing up in post-Soviet Moscow led her to search for a “missing” branch of her family. Once she followed the trail of family history to Switzerland, Nadia was able to reunite her family and piece together stories hidden for generations. This journey is recounted in her 2020 book, Worlds Apart: The Journeys of My Jewish Family in Twentieth-Century Europe.

Location

5a Bloomsbury Square London WC1A 2TA

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