Polly Zavadivker specializes and teaches courses in Modern Jewish and East European History.  Her current book project is a study of Jewish social activism in Russia during the First World War. It explores how Jews formed empire-wide networks of humanitarian aid, social and cultural activism at a time of total war and impending revolution.

Her next research project is a study of Soviet Jews shortly after World War II, with a focus on survivors of Nazi genocide. This project examines the importance of families, kinship, and gender in the formation of unofficial networks and support systems that Soviet Jews developed as ways to collectively cope with the impact of war and genocide.

In her teaching at UD she uses interdisciplinary methods to convey the varieties of Jewish experience in the Diaspora and modern Israel.  She emphasizes the use of primary sources, including diaries, literary works and official documents, as well as photographs, works of art and film, and material objects.

Her publications include S. An-sky, 1915 Diary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016) as translator and editor; and “Fighting ‘On Our Own Territory’: The Rescue and Representation of Jews in Russia during World War I,” in Russia’s Great War and Revolution: The Centennial Reappraisal, vol. 1: Russia’s Home Front, 1914-1922: The Experience of War and Revolution, eds. Adele Lindenmeyr, Christopher Read, Peter Waldron (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2016).