Head of the World Jewish Congress in Latvia, Gita Umanovska, served as an spy for the Soviet KGB in the 1980s, Israel Hayom has learned.
Officials in the Latvian Jewish community said that a few people had known about Umanovska's past.
Umanovska's name appears in Latvia's national archives as a KGB spy. She was assigned the code name "Genya" by a KGB officer known as "Romanov."
According to the information that has now come to light, in 1982, Umanovska – who was born Gita Leonidova Mordokhova – became interested in the work of the KGB's Fourth Division, which spied on transportation, ports, and air terminals. Three years later, Umanovska completed her training and changed her last name.
A source in the Latvian Jewish community said that Umanovska has published a study on Jewish women who worked as prostitutes in Riga in the 1930s, and her name was recently involved in an ultimately fruitless attempt to restore some 270 Jewish properties that were stolen in 1940, an issue that is considered politically volatile.
"It didn't come as a big shock. Some thought it could happen, but no one is rushing to talk about it," a Jewish community official told Israel Hayom.
Another official said that Umanovska is not considered a Jew under Jewish law, "which makes her case less interesting [to us]."
When contacted by Israel Hayom, Umanovska said, "I'm not interested in discussing this with journalists."
