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Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

ivolo.me

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Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#91

Post by CleanedStar »

strlen wrote: post #68
CleanedStar wrote: post #60

I read down to the first picture then got a TLDR sense. I did a find for "Jew" and lo and behold, this was the "surprise" climax of this melodrama. For one thing, before World War II, there was a Jewish quota in US Ivy League schools. Why focus close to home in 1940 USA though when you can hear a yarn from 1970 Uzbekistan, about as physically far from the majority of HN readers as possible? Secondly, before World War…

> Jews in the USSR would go to a top flight school in the USSR, get their diploma, then immediately go to Israel or the West and get paid a high salary. Complete and utter anti-Semitic horse shit: my dad was prohibited from as much as leaving the Soviet Union to attend a scientific conference until 1989. Even so, he still did not want to leave the USSR or the post-USSR state until it was clear (after Soviet Union's c…

"The idea that if a state pays for someone's education they subsequently own them is quite repugnant."

In 2005, the US Congress voted 302 to 126 that declaring bankruptcy would now not wipe away student debt.

The US doesn't let debts fall by the wayside either no matter where the lendee is in the world - the US funded the Argentina military overthrow of Argentina's democracy in 1976, and then "lent" the dictatorship money to carry out the Dirty War, killing off opponents who wanted to restore a democracy. The US demands Argentina pay that debt back today - in October 2012 US courts got Ghana to seize an Argentinian ship in order to pay that debt.

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#92

Post by democracy »

strlen wrote: post #68
CleanedStar wrote: post #60

I read down to the first picture then got a TLDR sense. I did a find for "Jew" and lo and behold, this was the "surprise" climax of this melodrama. For one thing, before World War II, there was a Jewish quota in US Ivy League schools. Why focus close to home in 1940 USA though when you can hear a yarn from 1970 Uzbekistan, about as physically far from the majority of HN readers as possible? Secondly, before World War…

> Jews in the USSR would go to a top flight school in the USSR, get their diploma, then immediately go to Israel or the West and get paid a high salary. Complete and utter anti-Semitic horse shit: my dad was prohibited from as much as leaving the Soviet Union to attend a scientific conference until 1989. Even so, he still did not want to leave the USSR or the post-USSR state until it was clear (after Soviet Union's c…

> Except that while university education in USSR was cheap, it was not actually completely free: you could receive a stipend to help (if you qualify), but it was not guaranteed.

I don't undestand the logic here: so if the Government doesn't pay you to attend Uni, this is not even free, but only 'cheap' education?

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#93

Post by lesterbuck »

vj44 wrote: post #22

Great post, and a very sad story (with a happy ending). Unfortunately, US (and others) universities applied similar policies (probably, more subtly though) up to 1970: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus...

Harvard and Columbia, among elite US universities, had quotas for Jewish admissions. The entire idea of saving spaces for legacy admissions is apparently one of the tactics used to block ethnic groups from admission. Even Richard Feynman was subject to these quotas, and when he was rejected from Colombia as over quota, he went to MIT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#94

Post by fusiongyro »

cema wrote: post #40
fusiongyro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how big a problem is antisemitism in Russia, in your opinion?

Ha, what an interesting disagreement! One of the commentators said "it's huge", and I was just about to say that it is generally less than it used to be and has more of the legendary than practical status. Things can easily change back to what they used to be, but currently they seem to be okay. However, I need to mention that I have not lived in that country for 20 years now, and although have been visiting often, s…

My impression (which is almost 100% from reading Ian Frasier's Travels in Siberia) is that nothing has a simple answer in Russia, and the question was probably ill-posed, but I appreciate everyone's reply. Even if the reports are contradictory, they help paint a picture.

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#95

Post by fusiongyro »

shn wrote: post #86

I wonder what is the root cause of anti-semitism? I always thought that anti-semitism is an illness that belonged exclusively to Europe, and they exported this "problem" to Middle East. Now I read that Soviet era, in multiple regions similar problem existed. But why? Do all other ethnics had their own fair share? If not why Jews? Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?

My pet theory is that we experience more persecution because what we are doesn't fit neatly into any simple taxonomy. It's a religion, a culture, a nationality, and several ethnicities, and each of these aspects overlaps incompletely and in amorphous, confusing ways. I think this is because Jewishness predates the firm delineation of these categories. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Roma are also heavily persecuted. If you're a nationalist, anything that complicates the tidy relationship between the citizen and their country is bad, even benign things like having relatives in another country.

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#96

Post by fusiongyro »

PeterisP wrote: post #51
fusiongyro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how big a problem is antisemitism in Russia, in your opinion?

Right now I'd say that being jewish is ok compared to some other nationalities, as there are quite a few reports of people murdered on the street in major cities for looking like immigrants from Caucasus or being black, but I haven't noticed such reports about jews.

If I visited Russia, do you supposed I'd experience more problems by being American or by being Jewish? Or would I even be likely to experience any problems at all?

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#97

Post by fusiongyro »

moxie wrote: post #44
ims wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

I was surprised to read about that too. The same guy, Sudoplatov, was involved in that, though, and writes: "The establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Birobidzhan in 1928 was ordered by Stalin only as an effort to strengthen the Far Eastern border region with an outpost, not as a favor to the Jews. The area was constantly penetrated by Chinese and White Russian terrorist groups, and the idea was to shield…

Nowadays the Jewish population there is Travels in Siberia. Of course it's barely populated to any degree.

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#98

Post by tatumizer »

ivolo wrote: post #17
s_baby wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. We have a similar quota system in America that limits asian admissions and with talks of extending quotas to limit male admissions in STEM degrees. What's not clear is if these Jewish quotas were proportional to population or not.

Author here. As far as I understand, the Jewish quotas were not proportional to the population. The other significant difference is that all these policies were completely opaque, not like you can find out how much Jews the university can accept this year. Officially, no such policy existed, but everyone knew it did. In my dad's case, he was told he failed the health exam, which was a complete lie. There were many ot…

> Author here. As far as I understand, the Jewish quotas were not proportional to the population

I was through similar experiences to your dad's roughly at the same time.

Quotas, where they were in place, WERE proportional to the population (2%). There was a number of very good schools where we Jews were more than welcome (e.g. MIIT) - your dad was supposed to be aware of this. You have to thank God that he was not accepted to Military Academy - you probably won't be here if he was.

I don't blame them for not accepting me to Moscow University. I blame them for not letting us go, locking us in their country and using as hostages in "peace" negotiations with US. (Every concession from US was accompanied by opening the gates for a small number of people).

People of Russia were (and still are, to large extent) victims of brainwashing. Beware of brainwashing, it's effective regardless of country.

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#99

Post by pandaman »

ivolo wrote: post #25
PRJIUS2 wrote: post #13

Posted last time[1] 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 c…

Regarding immigration: I don't know if there was much selection bias as we were in the immigration queue for 10 years before being selected. The Anti-Defamation League told Bill Clinton that the situation in Russia was getting worse (1996), and he increased the annual quota of Russian Jews allowed to enter the US. Regarding the second point: we have no more relatives in Russia, so the narrative is not meant to help a…

Why do you think they had to make up "hard" problems to lower grade for Jews if they, according to the OP, could just denny them admission without any reason in the first place?

Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)

#100

Post by yurylifshits »

In US, at the beginning of XXth century Stanley Kaplan had the similar admission problems. This experience motivated him to start Kaplan SAT preparation business. Few decades later it evolved into Kaplan Inc. (includes Kaplan University).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kaplan

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