resistance in the Nesvizh ghetto

7pm GMT, 9pm Israel, 10pm Belarus, 2pm EST, 11am PST

The last of our three part series of Jewish Nesvizh.

The story of the Nesvizh Ghetto in Belarus stands as one of the earliest and most remarkable acts of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. When the Nazis moved to liquidate the ghetto in July 1942, its residents—armed with little more than smuggled weapons and extraordinary courage—rose in defiance. Though most were killed, around forty fighters escaped to join the partisans in the surrounding forests.

This talk explores the history, humanity, and heroism of the Nesvizh Ghetto uprising—one of the first armed revolts against Nazi forces in Eastern Europe. Drawing on survivor testimony, archival research, and recent heritage work in Belarus, we will uncover how the Jewish community of Nesvizh, once vibrant and deeply rooted in local life, found the strength to resist even in the face of certain death.

Through this story of resistance and remembrance, we reflect on what it means to preserve dignity, faith, and identity under oppression, and how memory continues to shape the way Belarus and the wider world understand the Holocaust today.

The event will be in support of an exciting initiative to create a stunning new memorial in Nesvizh, one that celebrates life, resilience, and remembrance.

About the speaker:
Dr Leonid (Leon) Gershovich, born in 1981 in Gomel, Belarus (then the Soviet Union), repatriated to Israel as an infant, where he grew up and was educated. After completing high school, he attended a pre-military leadership academy and served in a combat unit of the Israel Defense Forces (2001–2004), later continuing in the reserves and working as a Jewish Agency emissary in Russia and the UK. A graduate of the Hebrew University’s Revivim program, he earned a BA in Judaic Studies and the Hebrew Bible (2010) and an MA in Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry (2011), before completing his PhD at Tel Aviv University in 2022 on “Jews and Jewish Life in Southeastern Belarus (1917–1941).” His academic and professional career spans research and education — including work with the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, over a decade teaching Jewish Bible and History, and most recently serving as a school principal (2024–2025). An independent researcher, Dr Gershovich focuses on pre-Soviet and Soviet Jewry, the Holocaust in the USSR, Soviet Jewish activism, Zionism, post-Soviet Jewish identity, and modern antisemitism. His recent study through ACTA (SICSA, Hebrew University) examined antisemitic propaganda in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus during the Russo-Ukrainian War, and his ongoing research explores how Soviet-era tropes reappear in contemporary discourse on Zionism and Israel. Through his work, he continues to illuminate the histories of Eastern European Jewry and their enduring impact on Jewish identity and memory today.

This event is part of our campaign to install two new memorials in Nesvizh, one in memory of the contribution that the Jewish community made to the town of Nesvizh and the second to mark the area that is the Jewish cemetery which is today a public park.

The Together Plan
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