Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on Thursday morning and charged with espionage by the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the successor to the KGB, the first time Russia has accused a foreign journalist of espionage since the Cold War.
According to a Wall Street Journal report published on Friday, Gershkovich, 31, is the American son of Soviet-born Jews who emigrated to the US in the late seventies. His mother, Ella, fled the Soviet Union when she was 22 via Israeli documents [there was no further explanation of this fact], and his father, Mikhail, left the Soviet Union in the same Jewish migration wave. The two met in Detroit and later moved to New Jersey, where they raised Evan and his older sister.
After Gershkovich graduated from college in 2014, he moved to New York to break into journalism. In 2016, he was hired as an assistant at the New York Times. But when an employee asked him why he doesn’t use his Russian language skills to cover the Russian beat, he took the question seriously, subsequently moving to Russia and joining the Moscow Times.
“He loved Russia and he wanted to report from here,” said Pjotr Sauer, a Moscow Times colleague now at the Guardian.
Mrs. Gershkovich told the WSJ that her son became more interested in his Russian and Jewish roots after moving to Russia. She once took him to a building she was afraid to visit as a teenager – a shul. “That’s when Evan started to understand us better,” she said.
When Evan’s father and sister later visited him in Moscow, they visited its new Jewish Museum together.
In January 2022, Gershkovich was hired by The Wall Street Journal. It was only a month later that Russia invaded Ukraine and his beat became a more perilous one.
“Reporting on Russia is now also a regular practice of watching people you know get locked away for years,” he tweeted in July.
According to the report, diplomats and legal experts don’t hold much hope that Gershkovich will be freed as espionage trials in Russia are carried out in secret and suspects are almost always convicted.
The FSB claims that Gershkovich was working on behalf of the US government and was arrested while collecting secret information about a Russian defense company.
Gerhskovich is now facing a possible prison sentence of up to 20 years. He is being held in Lefortovo prison and has not been allowed access to the lawyer hired by the WSJ.
An American Jewish journalist from the WSJ – Evan Gershkovich – has been detained in Russia on espionage charges.
Our thoughts are with Evan’s family during this time and trust @POTUS @SecBlinken will do everything possible to free him. pic.twitter.com/SRmNbKgdLm
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 30, 2023
Today on EVERY SINGLE newsstand in New York City.
Moscow must let Evan go.
The Jewish people will not remain silent about the kidnapping and abuse of #EvanGershkovich.@MedvedevRussia @MedvedevRussiaE#FreeEvan #IStandWithEvan pic.twitter.com/xCV92RjZeT
— Rabbi E. Poupko. #IStandWithIsrael 🇮🇱 (@RabbiPoupko) April 2, 2023
Statement from @WSJ on reporter Evan Gershkovich #IStandWithEvan https://t.co/lAACGsDEei pic.twitter.com/wzaXWk4KaN
— WSJ Communications (@WSJPR) April 1, 2023
Free Evan Gershkovich pic.twitter.com/9cloyGX9J5
— francesca mannocchi (@mannocchia) April 1, 2023
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Sadly he seems to be the real deal for americans, a russian jew who grew up in soviet phobic home, in the usa , then work for a liberal media and sent to Russia… not the greatest idea…
Both countries was never great for the Jewish people but there are many of them in the war zone of what is happening now over there also it seems like Putin could only dream of using his nukes and also killing his Wagner convicts getting rid of the old tanks and crying about the American dollar
How many times need I say & keep imploring:- The best & only way of handling these rogues countries, is to NEVER set foot in these countries, not even to change flights, and anyone already there, get out immediately, before it is too late.
Sorry, “Jewish” isn’t intersectional enough for biden admin to act. Now if he was a transgender native american, Biden would go to Kremlin personally to bust him out.