Robert Levy received a Ph.D. in history from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1998. He is the author of Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist (University of California Press, 2001). He is currently teaching Jewish history at Hebrew Union College and the Academy for Jewish Religion in Los Angeles.
Born to an impoverished Orthodox family in Bucharest, Ana Pauker joined the Romanian communist movement in 1915. She rose through the ranks, becoming one of the most powerful Communist leaders in Romania after World War II and, according to Time magazine, “the most powerful woman alive.”
