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Ages ago, in the 1970s Soviet Union, a Jewish stand-up comedian, Mikhail Zhvanetski , remarked in one of his skits that if you want to argue about the taste of coconuts (not available in the Soviet Union at that time), it’s better to talk to those who’ve actually tried them.

If you want to argue about antisemitism in academia, better ask those who have actually experienced it. Ask me.

I was 16 years old when I graduated from high school in Moscow in 1971. My ethnic heritage—Jewish—was written on my state ID by the authorities. I couldn’t change it. I applied to the “Moscow MIT”: Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. I passed the entrance tests with flying colors: 18 points out of 20, higher than 85 percent of those admitted. I was den

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