Contemporary Russian Jews enjoy the freedom of religious practice, a welcome shift from the anti-Semitic policies and religious persecution of the Soviet era. But what are the limits of Jewish practice, especially outside of the sanctuary?

Alexis Lerner of Columbia University and the University of Toronto explores the relationship between religious pluralism and regime type cover time and space, from the Maccabees to Putin's Russia and modern North America.

Alexis M. Lerner is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto in the Department of Political Science and at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. She is also a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. Her research focuses on authoritarianism, repression, co-optation, and anti-Semitism, primarily in the post-Soviet region. Alexis’ current project applies quantitative tools to the Shoah Foundation archive’s videorecorded Holocaust testimonies, in order to study the effect of national propaganda on the memories of child survivors. Alexis was previously a Visiting Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Director of Research at the Stanford US-Russia Forum. Alexis also has a deep connection to Beth Tzedec as her husband is the John and Mollie Pollock Rabbinic Intern and their daughter, Magda Rose, celebrated her baby naming with the Little Minyan in June 2017.