Ksenia Svetlova

Ksenia Svetlova
Date of birth	(1977-07-28) 28 July 1977 (age 39)
Place of birth	Moscow, Soviet Union
Year of aliyah	1991
Knessets	20
Faction represented in Knesset
2015–	Zionist Union

Ksenia Svetlova (Hebrew: קסניה סבטלובה‎‎; Russian: Ксения Светлова, born Moscow 28 July 1977) is an Israeli politician, journalist, associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and policy fellow at the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. She serves as a member of Knesset for the Zionist Union.

Born in Moscow to a family of intelligentsia. Her father Professor Igor Svetlov, an art historian and member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and her mother Svetlana Sorokina, a patent lawyer. Her paternal grandfather was the chief of metallurgy production of the USSR and recipient of the Order of Lenin, before he was executed by Josef Stalin in 1938 and posthumously rehabilitated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1958.

Her stepgrandfather was Yevgeny Vuchetich, the famous sculptor behind The Motherland Calls, who married her paternal grandmother, the art historian Sarah (née Samuel) Valerius. Her maternal grandmother, Dr. Victoria Moiseevna, was the head of the department of neurology, of First City hospital Moscow.

Between 1984 and 1991, Svetlova attended School 77 in Moscow. In 1991, at age 14, she immigrated to Israel with her mother. Her mother said that the only country they could immigrate to was Israel, stating: "If we must leave our beloved city, our native Moscow, then we can only leave it for home."

In Israel, she attended Bat Zion Orthodox boarding school in Jerusalem. She later studied Islamic and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning Bachelor's and Master's degrees. As of 2015^[update], she is a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern studies and an associate professor at Hebrew University. She is also a policy fellow at Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.

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