[PRJIUS2]

Posted last two times[1][2] one of these stories came around, comment applicable here:

As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account.

With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most of them came to the US as refugees who were recognized by the US State Department as being discriminated against for being Jewish in USSR/Russia. Secondly they have interest in maintaining the story anti-seminitism because it validates their narrative and could potentially help their relatives immigrate to the US.

Additionally many stories of anti-semitism that I heard were something a non-jew would experience as well but attributed to anti-semitism. As a personal example, I was at first denied admission to a specialized school in very late Soviet period. They eventually let me in because my mother found out that I had the highest score on the entrance exam of any one. Their excuse was that they had to let the kids who were in the paid summer program at the school first and now the class was full. A Jewish kid's parents would have been told they already have too many Jews in the advanced program. Both cases are just the admissions persons asking for a bribe.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5340553

[mudil]

In 1987 I and my friend from school went to Moscow to apply to MATI (Moscovskii Aviatsionno Technologicheskii Institut). I am Jewish, my friend Jewish as well. While in line to submit some additional paperwork, we were approached by an administrator, who walked us to the side, and frankly told us to take our documents somewhere else. As Jews, we would never be admitted to the Institut. no matter what.

We went to one of the more Jewish institutes: MIIT (Moskovskii Institut Zheleznodoroshnogo Transporta). The other Jewish place was Moskovskii Institute Stali i Splavov.

[hackuser]

I know nothing of the parent or their experiences. Unfortunately, it fits a pattern. That could be coincidence in the case of this comment, but I think the overall pattern is worth pointing out:

A common response to reports of any kind of discrimination is to downplay them -- it's not as bad as people report, they are a little paranoid, exaggerating, spreading stories, etc. If you watch for the pattern you can see it happenning a lot.

It's good, old fashioned FUD[1]: It minimizes the current issue, and more importantly it creates a situation where there are doubts about the credibility any future reporters of discrimination and problems. Finally, it's easy, when it doesn't affect you, to say someone else's problems are no big deal, they're just exaggerating, etc. 'Comedy is you fall down a manhole; tragedy is I stub my toe'.

In my experience, the truth is the opposite of what the FUD says: Discrimination is vastly underplayed, not exaggerated. Think how often the story you read is about a practice that's gone on for years or decades, and you had no idea. The group facing discrimination has much less of a voice, they don't control the media and movies aren't made about their experiences, and they are intimidated into not speaking out (partly due to comments like the ones I'm criticizing: The majority will simply discredit and smear them anyway).

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I'll also add that the parent comment fits another pattern: It's all anecdote. It's all based on hypothesis, and subjective analysis and impressions with no real basis.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

[force_reboot]

Furthermore, when people are described as refugees from anti-Semitism, without going into specifics, this gives a very different impression to the public, than when they are described as people moving away due to the same kind of discrimination that Asian Americans face in university admissions.

It's the lack of direct comparisons, which in turn follows from the lack of specifics, that allows people to get an exaggerated sense of the extent of anti-Semitism.

[kelukelugames]

A large number of my friends who are jewish Russian immigrants. I literally only know one Eastern European gentile. He claims everyone wanted to leave the Soviet Union.

I think churches also sponsored Russian immigrants in the 80s and 90s.

Update: I found this site[1].

Both the tsarist Russian and Soviet governments placed restrictions on emigration. In 1885 the imperial Russian government passed a decree that prohibited all emigration except that of Poles and Jews, which explains the small numbers of non-Jewish Russians in the United States before World War I. By the early 1920s, the Bolshevik/communist-led Soviet government implemented further controls that effectively banned all emigration. As for the second-wave White Russian refugees who fled between 1920 and 1922, they were stripped of their citizenship in absentia and could never legally return home. This situation was the same for the post-World War II DPs, who were viewed as Nazi collaborators and traitors by the Soviet authorities.

In contrast, the fourth wave of Russian immigration that began in late 1969 was legal. It was formally limited to Jews, who were allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Israel as part of the agreements reached between the United States and the Soviet Union during the era of détente. In return for allowing Jews to leave, the United States and other western powers expanded the economic, cultural, and intellectual ties with their communist rival. Although Jews leaving the Soviet Union were only granted permission to go to Israel, many had the United States as their true goal; and by 1985 nearly 300,000 had reached the United States.

After 1985 the more liberal policy of the Soviet government under Mikhail Gorbachev allowed anyone to leave the Soviet Union, and thousands more Jewish and non-Jewish Russians immigrated to the United States. Because Russia is an independent country with a democratically elected government, newcomers cannot justify their claim to emigrate on the grounds of political or religious persecution. This has resulted in a slowing of Russian emigration during the last decade of the twentieth century.

[1] http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Pa-Sp/Russian-Americans.ht...

Immigration history is fascinating. I'm reading about the other groups here: http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/index.html

[gist]

"attributed to".

Reminds me of when I am in my car at a stop light and a man looks over at me. I always think "wow if I was a woman or if I was black I would think that that is the reason they are looking at me".

[hackuser]

> I always think "wow if I was a woman or if I was black I would think that that is the reason they are looking at me".

This statement imagines what an imaginary person would be thinking, and implies that it represents the thinking of billions of people.

I wish my subjective imagination was so reliable. Think of all the time I could save studying facts, improving my analytical skills, and most of all, learning from and listening to other people who have different perspectives and experiences than I do. 'I imagine, therefore they are.'

[gist]

Why the snark? What I said wasn't politically correct in some way? Use of stereotypes? Please elaborate.

[hackuser]

My reasoning is what I said. But I agree, the snark was inappropriate. Sorry.

[randycupertino]

Instead you just use it to validate your extreme attractiveness, right? :) "I'm looking good today, check out everyone sneaking a peak at me!"

[gist]

Well no because if a person turns their head to look they don't necessarily know in advance that the person is good looking! (It might be the car that I drive though...). Now of course if I was to do that with women it wouldn't be based on the car of course!