About Lea Zeltserman
Born in St. Petersburg back when it was Leningrad, I landed on the lucky side of history when I immigrated to Canada with my parents as a toddler. I was raised between prairies and Rockies, in Edmonton, Alberta. I lived in Toronto for many years, and recently returned to Edmonton with my family.
I'm a writer, speaker, and cultural observer on all things Soviet-Russian and Jewish — if it's about our immigration, food or history, I'm probably interested and I've definitely got something to say.
My work has been published in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Heated, Tablet Magazine, the Forward, the Walrus, Saveur, Today's Parent, Canadian Jewish News, and others.
I also teach occasional in-person and virtual cooking classes.
Wait, are you Russian or Ukrainian?
The Soviet-Jewish identity has always been messy. We hail from 15 separate republics. And until the Russian attack on Ukraine, many (though not all) of us loosely referred to ourselves as Russian-Jews. The reality is, most Russian-Jews are from Ukrainian territories. Except the many places that weren't part of Ukraine until WWII. It gets confusing. Three of my grandparents came from Ukrainian shtetls and towns, but I was born in what's now Russia. I tend to use Russian-Jewish and Soviet-Jewish, because one is the language I speak and the other is the country I was actually born in. Enough said.
In the Media
My Q&A with writer Masha Rumer, on the Punctured Lines website.
An earlier Q&A with Punctured Lines, about my newsletter, the Soviet Samovar, and what drives my insistence that Soviet-era food should be considered Jewish food.
An interview for Contact Magazine on tensions between Russian and American Jews. Read it. (And read my op-ed for the Forward on the same issue.)
My interview with Shalom USA Radio in Baltimore on why Russian Jews don't want to hear about "being saved":
Read my interview with Jewcy.com, who named me to their "Big Jewcy" list a while back.