Here are my thoughts on the absolutely insane but also not terribly surprising story that DOGE fed summaries of National Endowment for the Humanities projects into ChatGPT when needing to cut those grants quickly to wipe the slate clean for Trump’s authoritarian project. www.jta.org/2026/03/09/u...

So long!

“Feb. 24 marks the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Four years is a particularly significant milestone for people who, like me, grew up in the Soviet Union, in the eternal shadow of World War II, because four years was the duration of the fight against the Nazis.”

Pub day!!! Our book is now out.

X is hiring a creative writing specialist at $40 an hour to make Grok better at writing and a true LOL at the qualifications

Apropos of nothing, truly floored to see that four years after the publication of my book, Holocaust and Genocide Studies has published a review! academic.oup.com/hgs/advance-...

I'm so excited to see this book is coming out. I read drafts of the chapter on Romania. It's a great piece of scholarship.

"Twitter was good for books: Can other sites do some of the same useful work?" A must-read essay by @derekkrissoff.bsky.social on what a fractured social media environment means for title discoverability and the strength of the book community as a whole. derekkrissoff.substack.com/p/twitter-wa...

In which I tell @derekkrissoff.bsky.social: “Booksky has its moments but in general social media is now totally decentralized and it’s just harder” -- harder to connect, harder to discover, harder to (gulp) promote. GREAT piece by Derek, always a shrewd observer in and of the book world.

My latest @jewishbookcouncil.bsky.social review is up. A look at Andrew Por­wanch­er’s new biography of Teddy Roosevelt from @princetonupress.bsky.social www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/america...

My father was a Nazi hunter, until he was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, when I was four. Now, a man will stand trial for the crime. What does it mean, after nearly forty years, to seek justice for the crimes of history? My new cover story for the Times Magazine: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...

Today at 2 EST, historians Diana Dumitru, @stefanc-ionescu.bsky.social, Emanuel Grec, and @granttharward.bsky.social will join @ww2tv.bsky.social to talk about Romania’s first war crimes trial, which took place 80 years ago Saturday. Recording available afterward: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bHp...

As always, it was great to hear @returnstosender.bsky.social’s speak last night about The Zelmenyaners, recently reissued from the @yiddishbookcenter.bsky.social’s White Goat Press (written by Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Hillel Halkin). It includes Sasha’s notes and introduction.

On the bright side, this cookbook from Alissa Timoshkina looks amazing www.penguin.co.uk/books/466737...

Zelenskyy defends his sovereign country and citizens against two tag-teaming bullying extortionists and glorified state-mafia bosses. Don’t accept another narrative. It is what is. Just a shameful US policy - thoughtless and counterproductive and one that is no foreign policy at all.

The war in Ukraine is a war for historical truth. My WSJ essay about how Ukraine’s tragic past — the subject of my new novel No Country for Love — explains its determination not to succumb to Russian rule once again. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

"Appeasement at Munich: World Wars, Past and Possible" The symmetry between Germany-Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Russia-Ukraine in 2022 is uncanny, and pausing for a moment on the resemblances might help us to take a broader view of today. snyder.substack.com/p/appeasemen...

2025 Books by Post-Soviet Authors -- Thanks to @sashavasilyuk.bsky.social for keeping track of all the upcoming 2025 books by immigrant writers from the former USSR, writing in English and publishing in the US. Take a look -- it's quite a bounty of riches! Authors include: @shustry.bsky.social,

Every month the Yiddish Book Center puts out a selection featuring various items associated with its collections or other work. I was asked to “handpick” this month’s selections—so here they are. I focused on Soviet Yiddish (and Soviet Jewish) things: www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-lit...

I created a thing! It is definitely missing people - if you are a person who should be on it, pls let me know! go.bsky.app/8HazBeR