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The pain of Emma Tsurkov, 36, sharpens at one recurring moment each month: when she receives her paycheck as a research director for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in California. The numbers representing her income and deductions stir an unbearable thought—that her American taxes, deducted from her salary, might indirectly reach the kidnappers in Iraq who are holding her older sister, Elizabeth Tsurkov.
"Each time I see taxes deducted from my paycheck, or when we file our taxes in April, my blood boils," she tells Ynet in an interview. "I can’t help but feel that the taxes I pay here are sent to the Iraqi government, which then uses them to pay the salaries of terrorists—terrorists who killed American soldiers and are now holding a Princeton graduate student hostage. And they just get away with it."
Elizabeth, 38, a dual Israeli-Russian citizen, was kidnapped in March 2023 in Baghdad by the Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and other Western countries. Despite this designation, the militia is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of militias funded and supported by the Iraqi government.
Tsurkov, a researcher and Middle East expert, entered Iraq on her own initiative using her Russian passport to conduct academic research as part of her doctoral studies at Princeton University. In November, her captors released a video of her, but no official information about her condition or whereabouts has surfaced since.
Officials in contact with the family have confirmed that she is alive and being held in Iraq. However, the kidnappers have never issued any official demands for her release.
"People hear 'Kataib Hezbollah' and envision some insular terrorist group hiding somewhere in the mountains, but that’s not the case at all. They’re actually part of the Iraqi Security Forces. Many members of Kataib Hezbollah are Iraqi government employees. They’re on the payroll, getting money and arms from the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government, in turn, gets hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance every year from the U.S. government. So the taxes I pay living in California—which I pay plenty—are used to pay the salaries of the people holding my sister. And it’s just maddening. We’re suckers. We hand over this money and demand no accountability, which is absurd to me, and it just really frustrates me to no end."
'I don’t need any fancy meetings—I just need my sister'
Last April, this frustration drove Emma to sneak into an event in Washington where Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was speaking. Facing the cameras, she confronted him: "You should be ashamed of yourself... your government is funding these terrorists!"
Even now, she has no regrets. "It was a very genuine display of frustration—just pure, unfiltered frustration—knowing that my sister is stuck in some hole in Iraq, being held by terrorists funded with American money and the taxes we all pay. And the fact that the Iraqi prime minister gets to just waltz around D.C., enjoy the tulips, eat macarons, and be treated with a red carpet as if nothing is wrong, as if he’s just a legitimate leader and not the coalition partner of a bunch of terrorist militias—which is exactly what he is, make no mistake about it.
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Emma Tsurkov confronts Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani during an event in Washington, D.C.
"The Iraqi Prime Minister kept making this lip service, saying, 'Oh yeah, we’re very concerned about the fate of the Princeton student, and we’re determined to do everything we can to find out what happened to her,' which is nonsense. They’ve done nothing. Literally nothing. If the Iraqi prime minister wanted to, she could be home now. And the way I know this is because, in the past, when the same terror organization kidnapped an Iraqi person who was working for an American employer, the Iraqi prime minister picked up the phone, called Kataib Hezbollah, and told them to let him go. Within two weeks, he was home—no ransom or anything.
"The militia holding my sister has a political wing, similar to Hamas, with both a military and a political branch. The political wing of Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Iraqi parliament and actually part of the prime minister’s governing coalition. It’s insane to me that he gets away with pretending he doesn’t know anything or can’t do anything. He’s either blind or incompetent, and neither should inspire us to send another single dollar over there without my sister’s freedom being secured."
Your anger is directed at Iraq and the U.S., but Elizabeth isn’t an American citizen—she’s Israeli and Russian. Why aren’t your demands directed at Jerusalem and Moscow?
"The U.S. government is the party with the strongest ties and ability to influence the kidnappers, and therefore the greatest power to secure my sister's release. This is both because of her ties to the U.S.—she was kidnapped while conducting research funded by Princeton University—and because she is a New Jersey resident.
"The Israeli government doesn’t have a relationship with their government. There are no diplomatic ties between the countries, and this isn’t generally a space where Israel has much influence. However, the U.S. government has the reach—and, I think, the moral obligation—because it is terrorists who are holding my sister hostage.
"Even if she were an American Jew and not Israeli, she’d still be in this situation. Terror groups target Jews—not just Israelis. To them, it doesn’t matter. They see every Jew as a target. I don’t know what’s in their heads, but based on the fact that they kill Jews who aren’t Israeli, I have no reason to believe it would’ve made much difference. So really, this is about America. This is aimed at America. The U.S. is the one that’s responsible and should be accountable. So as far as I'm concerned, anything that doesn't bring my sister home is a distraction."
Although President Joe Biden reportedly raised the issue during his meeting with Iraq’s prime minister at the White House, Tsurkov herself has never spoken with him or been invited to the White House. "I met with Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, and I will say that everyone has been kind, showed a lot of empathy, and expressed how sorry they are for what my family and I are going through," she continues. "But there just hasn’t been a willingness to actually hold the Iraqi government accountable. What I want to see—while I do appreciate the kindness and empathy—is my sister back at the end of the day."
Is it a trigger for you to sit at home and watch President Biden’s meetings with the families of the American hostages in Gaza?
"That’s not what I’m asking for. Let me put it this way—I don’t need any formalities or gestures. What I need is my sister. If no one wants to meet with me but they bring my sister back, that’s perfectly fine with me. I’m not focused on the process, only the result. However it happens, I don’t care. I just want my sister back. I don’t need any fancy meetings—I just need my sister."
The U.S. State Department responded: "We are deeply concerned about this case and are closely monitoring it. We strongly condemn the kidnapping. We have urged, and continue to urge, Iraqi officials to locate Elizabeth and secure her release as soon as possible."
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Emma hopes that Donald Trump’s return to the White House will signal a shift in U.S. foreign policy and a stronger willingness to pressure the Iraqi government. She plans to travel to Capitol Hill early in the year, once key officials in the new administration take office, to "speak to anyone willing to listen and help move things forward."
The incoming White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, said: "The American people reelected President Trump because they trust him to restore stability and peace to the Middle East. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary steps to achieve exactly that."
Mean people on the Internet
Elizabeth and Emma Tsurkov were born in St. Petersburg to Jewish dissidents who had previously been imprisoned in Siberia. When they were four and two years old, respectively, the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Kfar Eldad in the West Bank, where their mother still lives. They have a younger brother and sister who also live in Israel, while their father resides in Brazil.
After her military service, Elizabeth earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations and communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University and political science at the University of Chicago. She later began a Ph.D. at Princeton, which brought her to Iraq as part of her research. Her studies focused on the Middle East, particularly Syria, ISIS and the Syrian civil war. She conducted fieldwork in Syria, Jordan, Turkey and other countries in the region.
Emma also pursued an academic career in the U.S. After studying law in Israel and clerking for Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer, she began a master’s degree at Stanford in 2014, where she continued to a Ph.D. She began working for the Anti-Defamation League in 2022.
Recent hostage and prisoner exchange deals—such as those brokered between the U.S. and Russia, and between Israel and Hamas—evoke mixed emotions for the Tsurkov family. "It’s bittersweet," Emma explains. "I’m elated for the families who get to see their loved ones come back. I envy them so, so much—just imagining the excitement on their faces standing on the tarmac makes my heart feel like it could explode. I’m thrilled for them, but it’s also deeply painful because I want so badly to see my sister again.
“But it also gives me hope, because it shows that even in the bitterest rivalries, agreements can happen. The deal with Hamas that brought Israelis and other nationals home gives me hope that these deals are possible. Let’s be clear: this is how hostages come home."
Can you understand the criticism that the circumstances of Elizabeth's abduction are different from those of the hostages in Gaza, and that there may be levels of importance or priority in such a case?
"It’s not my job to tell anyone which hostage is more important. It’s not for me to judge. I’m just saying that my sister is in a very unique position. She’s currently the only hostage being held in a country that is an ally of the United States. It defies reason to me that a government that is such a strong U.S. ally, and gets so much support from the U.S. government, can still allow a graduate student from a U.S. institution to be held hostage there."
Israelis live in a zero-sum game
Still, criticism coming from Israel has made it impossible for Emma and her family to ignore this “hierarchy.” After October 7, she felt a bond of shared suffering with the families of the hostages in Gaza—“like suddenly there were 251 families who joined the terrible version of hell that I was already living in.”
But it didn’t take long for the Tsurkov family to sense they weren’t seen as part of the collective—and perhaps even unwelcome in the struggle. This escalated into repeated harassment, threatening messages and phone calls.
"I don’t want to judge how anyone deals with this horrible torment," Tsurkov says. "This is truly an unthinkable tragedy for anyone to go through. For some people, everything about this is painful. It’s brutal—the idea that some hostages might come at the expense of others. I personally don’t feel that way, but I also can’t judge people who do. It’s just such a heartache.
“Whenever someone is about to say something mean to a relative of a hostage, they should pause and consider what has brought them to this point. I’m generally not someone who’s particularly sensitive to what the Internet says but this is just torture to see people speculate. One of the most painful things about having a loved one in captivity is the uncertainty and the desperation for any shred of information. And yet, there are a lot of mean people on the Internet who take advantage of it and just torment hostage families. I don’t even know why they do it, but it’s deeply disheartening."
Does this affect your fight?
"You’re not focusing on the criticism—you’re focusing on the reasons to bring her back. I don’t see any good coming out of any type of divide and conquer between hostage families. It doesn’t benefit anyone—the only ones who benefit are the terrorists, and I’m not giving them that satisfaction.
The only reason I even finished my PhD is because I was supposed to finish it not long before she was kidnapped. I felt like they were already taking her PhD away, and I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of taking mine as well. That’s pretty much the only reason. To me, the fact that terrorists would benefit from this infighting among hostage families is more reason not to take part in this."
And how have the responses been toward you in the U.S.?
"The reactions I get from Israelis are different from responses I get from non-Israelis. I also get a lot of warm messages and words of support and kindness from both Israelis and especially the Jewish community in the U.S. It has been truly remarkable to see how many kind Jewish souls around the U.S. who never heard about my sister but were willing to help simply because they're also Jewish."
How do you explain this difference?
"The comments I get from Israelis have to do more with how undeserving my sister is of any empathy or compassion. Israelis are constantly in a sense of a zero-sum game. Everything is a struggle or a competition for something.
"The kindness extended to me by American Jews feels like it comes from this sense of Judaism as something that unites us, this shared feeling of destiny. It’s this idea of standing with someone who shares a sense of fear of persecution. And my sister is in the unenviable position of being a Jewish woman held captive by radical, extremist terrorist groups. I think that resonates strongly with American Jews, and I’m deeply, deeply grateful for that."
Mom cried live on air
One of the most important messages she received from the Jewish community was not to neglect her personal life. “Although it feels like all I want to do is stop doing anything else and throw myself into this, it's really important for me to still have some sense of self outside of my sister being a hostage,” she says. “These things take time, and it's going to be a long journey, and to make it to the end of it, I need to be able to exist in parallel.”
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Emma Tsurkov and her son Daniel
(Video: Courtesy of the family)
Elizabeth has already missed her sister’s Ph.D. graduation ceremony at Stanford University. That moment, like every significant milestone in the life of Emma’s two-year-old son, Daniel, is carefully documented and saved in a digital "time capsule," in the hope that one day Elizabeth will be able to see what she missed. In the videos Emma records, Daniel refers to her as "the aunt in Iraq." He doesn’t know any other reality.
Where are your parents and siblings in this fight?
“We prefer to keep them out of this. When it all began, someone made my mom cry live on television, and we decided this isn’t for them. I’ve become the face of the fight, and that’s how we’ve been managing.”
She adds, “There’s a year age gap between Elizabeth and me, but we always said she was the eldest by mistake. Growing up, I was basically the eldest in behavior—the one who took responsibility—and somehow, that’s happening again now.
"I still have this habit—when something interesting happens, I reach for my phone to text her about it because we would always think the same thing. We would often text each other the exact same message at the same time, or call each other to say the exact same thing. I know that if she gets to see the news, she thinks the same things as I do. I just hope I get to see her soon, because we have a lot of inside jokes that we need to catch up on."
And how are you coping in the meantime?
"I can’t even explain what a nightmare this is. I haven’t slept properly a single night since March 2023. I think about her all the time. I wish I could tie her to the bed so something like this could never happen again."
Do you feel any anger toward her?
"There is nothing in the world a person could do to deserve such a punishment. Whatever mistake she may have made, she doesn’t deserve what happened to her. In any case, that belongs to the category of things I can think about later. Right now, anything that doesn’t bring her back home is irrelevant and unimportant. And if she doesn’t come back, then what does it matter? This isn’t about inner strength or anything like that—it’s just that there’s no other choice. Nothing good awaits me at the bottom of that pit of ‘what ifs.’ There’s no point in going there."
Some relatives of hostages admit that sometimes they wish for the nightmare to simply end, even if it means knowing their loved ones are no longer alive. Do you relate to that feeling?
"At the end of all this, if she doesn’t survive, then of course I... I would prefer she didn’t suffer. But if she comes home alive, it will have been worth everything. I can’t know what she’s going through there. I’ve imagined it all—everything from the darkest scenarios to the most optimistic ones. I don’t think I have the moral right to judge whether this effort is worth it or not. That’s a question only she can answer, if and when I bring her back."