In first sign of life since her March abduction, an Israeli-Russian academic appears in a video

Elizabeth Tsurkov spoke Hebrew in a video in which she claimed — apparently under coercion — to be a spy for the West

Elizabeth Tsurkov. Courtesy of Elizabeth Tsurkov’s website

By Lauren Markoe November 13, 2023

Princeton University graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov has appeared for the first time on video since her kidnapping in Iraq in March, according to The Times of Israel and other news outlets.

Reuters said it could not verify the video, which has been shown on Iraq’s Al Rabiaa satellite TV network, or contact the group which is holding her.

Tsurkov, 36, who hold both Israeli and Russian citizenship, speaks Hebrew in the video, though she is also fluent in Arabic. Apparently coerced by her captors, she criticizes Israel’s war in Gaza and says she went to Iraq as a spy for the West. Tsurkov, who contributed many op-eds to the Forward in recent years, had traveled to Baghdad in January to finish up field research for her dissertation on sectarianism in the Middle East, Princeton University has verified.

Daughter of dissidents

She was abducted from a Bagdad cafe by the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorist group, known as K.H., according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As part of her work she had collected evidence that K.H. is tied to the Iraqi government and military — which, in turn, are supported by U.S. aid, including $630 million last year.

Tsurkov’s abduction was kept secret until July, when major news outlets reported on it. Last month her sister Emma Tsurkov, who lives in the Bay Area, said that there had been no proof of life, ransom demand or communication with her captors.

Emma Tsurkov, noting that her sister has been a U.S. resident since 2017, has pressed the Biden administration and members of Congress to pressure Iraq to work toward her freedom.

“She will die there unless we get her out of there,” Emma Tsurkov told Forward editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren. “I know she is trusting me to get her out of there.”

Elizabeth Tsurkov is the oldest of the four children of Arkada and Ira Tsurkov, Soviet dissidents who spent a year in prison with Natan Sharansky.

Lauren Markoe is news editor of the Forward. A Bronx native, she reported for The Patriot Ledger, several McClatchy newspapers in the South, and Religion News Service, where she was also managing editor. She also produced live radio shows at WAMU in Washington, D.C., where she lives.

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