User:Elizabeth Tsurkov

I'm 20 years old (born 11/11/1986) and I live in a small settlement in Israel, near Bethlehem. I was born in the USSR, and fled the country with my mother and my sister when I was four. My parents were political dissidents in the USSR, and even did time in jail (my father total of almost nine years, my mother did three). I'm only writing this to explain why I have some informal knowledge about the USSR, Communism and the Cold War. I speak, read and write fluently in Russian.

I attended school in Israel, my majors were biochemistry and English. My English is very good by Israeli standards. I speak basic Arabic and haveknowledge in politics, Middle-East studies and international relations. I'm interested in religions, especially Islam. I wrote many of the articles about Islam in the Hebrew Wikipedia.

Topics I have knowledge in:

• Islam, especially Shia Islam, early history of the religion and the Quran.
• Israeli history especially the period of the British mandate
• Lebanese history after independence.
• Iran in the 20th century
• The Arab-Israeli conflict