Early Israelites: Two Peoples, One History: Rediscovery of the Origins of Biblical Israel
Igor P. Lipovsky was born March 7, 1950, in Moscow, in an interfaith Russian-Jewish family. His paternal ancestors were prominent leaders and philanthropists of the Jewish community of Minsk, Belarus, while his mother (née Robinson) descended from the Russian-English family of well-known industrialists and merchants in pre-revolutionary Russia.    Igor P. Lipovsky graduated with distinction from Lomonosov Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African Studies. He then worked as a researcher and doctoral student at Academy of Sciences, in Moscow. Because of his criticism of the totalitarian and anti-Semitic regime in the Soviet Union, he was forced to leave the country in 1987. He received his Ph.D. degree in Near Eastern History in Israel, in 1989. In 1987-1992 he taught at the Department of Middle Eastern History of Haifa University. After the collapse of the USSR, he was invited as a visiting professor to St. Petersburg University (1993-1995); he then taught in Los Angeles (1995-97) and Boston (from 1998).  Igor P. Lipovsky specializes in Near Eastern and Central Asian History. He has published more than a hundred articles in Russian, German, British and American journals and five books in the English and Russian languages. He lives in suburban Boston and is now a United States citizen.