Despite a growing reputation in his field, anti-Semitic prejudice in the Joseph Stalin-era Soviet academy forced Kazhdan to accept a series of positions as a provincial teacher (in Ivanovo, 1947–49, and Tula, 1949–52).

[2] His 1954 article, "Vizantiyskie goroda v VII-XI vv.," published in the journal Sovetskaya arkheologiya, argued on the basis of archaeological and numismatic evidence that the seventh century constituted a major rupture in the urban society of Byzantium.

In October 1978 Alexander and Musja left the Soviet Union, having received a visa for immigration to Israel, coming to the United States three years afterward.

In February 1979 they arrived at Dumbarton Oaks, a center for Byzantine studies in Washington, D.C., where Kazhdan held the position of senior research associate until his death.

His greatest English-language project was likewise a massive collaborative effort: the three-volume Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991), edited by Kazhdan, was the first reference work of the sort ever to be published, and remains an indispensable point of departure for all areas of Byzantine studies.