As an example, my mom was not allowed to defend her Ph.D. dissertation (despite having done the research and having finished her dissertation!) because of an in

As an example, my mom was not allowed to defend her Ph.D. dissertation (despite having done the research and having finished her dissertation!) because of an informal, ill-understood Jewish quota. This wasn't even Moscow State: this was in Belarus, one of the least anti-Semitic of Soviet Republics (the birthplace of the Marc Chagal, the creator of Modern Hebrew, and many other prominent Jews) -- the lab director simply said "I don't want any Jews coming my way, I'm involved in ethnic politics here!". Note that she wasn't denied admission: this happened mid-flight. This is very different from being turned down at one university, choosing to attend another university, and from that point being judged solely on academics. Another example is Moscow State University having a computer program that looked for Jewish sounding student last names and automatically lowered their grades. Anti-Semitism/Anti-Judaism in Tzarist Russia was incredibly harsh (see the etymology of the word "pogrom"), but it was codified and known: one knew what the Jewish quotas were at the universities and the entire nascent capitalist sphere was open to Jews (e.g., a Jew could become a "merchant of first guild"). Being baptized was also the way out for some (e.g., Anton Rubinstein) as Jewish identity was considered a religion as opposed to an ethnicity. Again, I don't mean to white-wash the harsh and destructive anti-Semitism of the Tzars -- indeed, it contained many seeds (Protocols of Elders of Zion, conflation of Judaism with both Marxism and Capitalism, etc...) for the racist anti-Semitism of Nazis and Soviets, but there's something to be said for at least an official acknowledgement that the system existed as opposed and being able to work around it.