Good universities meant, the kids of ruling party must be admitted to have good/better careers in apparatus than their parents. This is the main card drawn against people. Some universities had big problem with that like the one who prepared surveillance and contra-surveillance officers, so they switched to admitting only people with no high ranking parents ties back in 80's. As the kids from high ranking officer families were really well known.
I also believe there was a lot of ethnicity, and living place (soviet republic you are coming from may shut down the doors into university) discrimination in admission process.
Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
121–130 of 135 posts
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#122I 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.
Bullshit. Education was free and you got stipend. Size of the stipend depended on your academic achievements but even if you did not get stipend you did not have to pay. Not only that, but in a significant amount of cases dorm was also provided for free.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Crimea was one idea, so was a semi-autonomous state out near Birobidzhan. The problem with saying that it was paranoia that some people in the Jewish community were trying to undermine the Russian government, is that, especially after the fall of the USSR, right wing Jews have openly boasted about how they HAD been working to undermine the Russian government, and were using the Jewish community in the USSR to do…
Links please? I'm Jewish and have never heard of this. At all.
There will be no links because you are talking with someone who has a disproportionate distaste for Jews. Look at the comment history.
I am pretty amazed that when people make ridiculous comments about history, sources are not required. Jews did not go through Russian pilot training only to get paid more money in the Israeli air force (comment history) nor did Jews have an organized resistance to the oppression they experience in Soviet Russia.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#124Thanks to the OP for posting this. I want to read it to my kids, so they understand how lucky and spoiled we are. I think the persecution of the Jews in any culture is wrong. And so is the persecution of any religion. I think the freedom of religion, including the right to pray in schools, on T.V. and radio, in government, etc. is a freedom that the U.S. was not only founded on, but what people have died for, and I a…
Anti-semitism isn't always about religion. Sometimes it's just racism.
While some genetic characteristics can be considered Jewish, not all Jews have those characteristics, so it could also be considered "anticulturalism". As a Christian and gentile, I don't understand what it is like to be discriminated against on so many levels. Christians have only been persecuted for < 2000 years, and we span the globe in radically different races and cultures. Only certain faiths have as strong tendency to intermarry as Jews (almost always marry another person of faith X)- Mormons and Scientologists come to mind (note: that is the truth, not meant to be a slight against Mormonism).
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Links please? I'm Jewish and have never heard of this. At all.
There will be no links because you are talking with someone who has a disproportionate distaste for Jews. Look at the comment history. I am pretty amazed that when people make ridiculous comments about history, sources are not required. Jews did not go through Russian pilot training only to get paid more money in the Israeli air force (comment history) nor did Jews have an organized resistance to the oppression they…
My comment was in response to this idea that Russians were crazy to think there were underground spy networks of right wing Jews in Russia. But right wing Jews openly boast of doing this. I generally come to this web site to read about B-tree algorithms and VC funding and have no desire spending too much time debating the USSR circa 1970. But anyone who is interested can Google "chabad underground" or "chabad underground russia" or "chaba underground ussr" for starters. As I said, these are not third parties, but actual Jewish participants bragging about these underground spy networks in the USSR in English - in documents and on Youtube. If you know Hebrew you can read and hear even more. I don't have too much interest in spycraft, but their open bragging after the collapse of the USSR belies the notion of the top poster that these spy networks did not exist.
As far as my comment history, anyone reading it can see this poster is full of nonsense as I never discuss the Russian air force in any respect. As far as "distaste for Jews", the reader can play a mental game if they wish - again one can read my comment history and conjure up a mental image of a theoretical Jewish person in the US. They are assimilated, secular, educated, intellectual, deracinated, grandparents were labor organizers, older cousin has stories about the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz they once lived at. Then conjure up a mental image of an orthodox/ultra-orthodox, religious, insular, Zionist, anti-communist Jew. THEN conjure up an image of a fundamentalist, evangelical, religious, insular, and Zionist, anti-communist Christian goy. I have met people in my life who could be categorized in any of these three categories. I would say I enjoyed being with one of those types of people, and had a distaste for the other two. The above post says I have a "distaste for Jews". I leave it as an exercise to the reader which one of these types I enjoy spending time with, and which two I have a distaste for.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#126What's interesting is that according to several narratives from those close to the central committee under Stalin, anti-semitic policies in the Soviet Union started from geo-political maneuvering rather than any inherent personal sense of racism. Sudoplatov, an NKVD agent who worked for Beria, wrote in his memoirs that the original Soviet post-war plans were actually to establish a Jewish republic in the Crimea , wit…
The Crimea was one idea, so was a semi-autonomous state out near Birobidzhan. The problem with saying that it was paranoia that some people in the Jewish community were trying to undermine the Russian government, is that, especially after the fall of the USSR, right wing Jews have openly boasted about how they HAD been working to undermine the Russian government, and were using the Jewish community in the USSR to do…
Of course, every rational and honest person was trying to undermine the Soviet government, because it was a repressive dictatorship. Sure everyone will brag about it nowadays much more than they really did back then - few really had balls to deal with KGB. Jews are no exception here.
Antisemitism was of the same nature and origin in Russia as everywhere else - 'evil' Jews were a good excuse for the rulers' own failure and incompetence.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I've been wondering about myself... Can't answer your question, but can only point out that you are a bit mistaken to treat Europe and ex-Soviet territories (especially their European part) as two completely separate worlds, since before the Iron Curtain came to exist, they shared quite a bit of common history. More reading about anti-Semitism in that territory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Upri…
I know that answer is not in this forum. However I expect someone may be heard of a good book to explain this. A book based on research an anthropological study but not on sentimental history of the problem. (By the way somebody down voted my question. Isn't this a legitimate question?)
I almost downvoted you because you said "Or Jewish people are just more outspoken?" which sounds a bit like "Or are they asking for it?" but I decided it was probably just a communication problem.
There are lots of books on this topic. "Why the Jews" is supposed to be good. There's also "Antisemitism Explained" by Dr. Steven Baum, my former psychiatrist, which I would expect to take a deep psychological analysis (but I haven't read it).
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#128Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
wait, racism, in what part of the post?
Oh I see now, there's huge gap between two walls of text, I never scrolled down.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
There will be no links because you are talking with someone who has a disproportionate distaste for Jews. Look at the comment history. I am pretty amazed that when people make ridiculous comments about history, sources are not required. Jews did not go through Russian pilot training only to get paid more money in the Israeli air force (comment history) nor did Jews have an organized resistance to the oppression they…
My comment was in response to this idea that Russians were crazy to think there were underground spy networks of right wing Jews in Russia. But right wing Jews openly boast of doing this. I generally come to this web site to read about B-tree algorithms and VC funding and have no desire spending too much time debating the USSR circa 1970. But anyone who is interested can Google "chabad underground" or "chabad undergr…
I do not mean to imply that you came to this site to spew racist hatred. I have lurked quite some time and have read your previous comments, which offer an alternative view of history. I only wish to see proof (provided by you) of this alternative history. If you can provide me with actual evidence, I will gladly take some of my time to analyze it and even ask someone I know who speaks hebrew to translate.
One thing I want to bring to your attention, which specifically bothered me, is that an oppressed minority living in an oppressive land who has members that try to resist is not proof in itself of a hypocrisy of the entire minority, nor is it some kind of evidence that the oppression was just.
My European family was murdered in Poland. I was raised in an area surrounded by racists and bigots. I was beaten up as a child for no other reason than my race (at the age of 5). My neighbor and friend growing up (of German decent) would tell me how Jews were intrinsically thieves, though I was different, and how Hitler was a genius.
I do have personal reasons to be critical of your words. Your reasoning, however, is not valid. Right wing Jews can openly talk about anything they like. People tend to bend history when they get the short end of the stick. It is a coping mechanism. Please don't judge an entire people based on flimsy evidence. I like B trees too.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#130Earlier 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…
"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."
FYI, it was often known how many Jews were allowed each year. My dad had to take last two years of HS in one year (via extern) in order graduate a year early to get into Kiev medical school (circa 1970). Limit was only 1 Jew per year and he was the same age as the son of the dean (who was also jewish).