About Naya Lekht, PhD

Naya Lekht was born in Ukraine and came to the United States with her family in 1989. She holds a PhD in Russian Literature from UCLA, where she wrote her dissertation on Holocaust literature in the Soviet Union. Naya is particularly interested in how writers express themselves in totalitarian states. Naya’s academic background studying Jewish history and literature in the Soviet Union shaped her interest to investigate the roots of contemporary antisemitism. In 2018, she was a scholar-in-residence at Oxford University with ISGAP, where she developed a unique curriculum on antisemitism.  She currently serves as a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. Acutely mindful of the lessons from the Soviet Union, Naya is engaged in designing curriculum on the perils of communism. Currently, Naya is developing “Totalitarianism and Literature,” a course that focuses on crimes committed by totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. To anchor the themes of morality, state power, and free will, the course begins with Dostoevsky’s 1860 seminal novel, Crime and Punishment. In addition to her passion in curriculum design and teaching, Naya is working on a book project tentatively titled, When Sabina Met Michael: The Encounter between Russian and American Jews. In this book, Naya hopes to reorient Jews in the United States towards a different relationship to their people, their ancestral land, and ultimately, their Jewish identity. Her writing can be found in The American Spectator, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Journal, The American Thinker, Algemeiner, and Times of Israel.