It depends on what part of the Soviet Union he was from. If he was from the place with low Jewish population then what he said is actually true.

I am originally from central Russia and I've learned about anti-Semitism in Soviet Union only after moving to US. Yap, never heard or witnessed anything like that while living there.

Another interesting thing is that several of my Jewish friends told me that their parents asked them to lie about anti-Semitism when they were interviewed at the US embassy in Moscow in the late 90s.

Wasn't that also true, though?

In the 90's, most of jews packed their things and promptly moved out. Same for a million "germans" who last were to Germany five generations ago.

But russians were stuck, nobody wanted russians (other "mundane" people of Russia, too). I wonder if that's also racist.

1. It is possible both are true. But my problem with him is that he denied discrimination also existed.

2. I suspect it is due to the US government. We really don't want communists in our country. Source: my partner and I immigrated from different "communist" countries.

From what I observed (and learned from others), state sanctioned discrimination against Soviet Jews did not exist at the time of the last wave (say, 1989 onwards). Don't have an axe to grind as I came around that time to the US as a Jewish refugee myself.

PS: To put the OP in context (not to condone the practice in any way), the discrimination was directed not just against the Jews, but more generally against any graduates of a select few top specialized physics/math schools (most had over 50% Jewish students). From what I understand, the driving factors behind the discrimination were along the lines of: These schools at the time (70s through mid-80s) were viewed as disloyal; their graduates likely to emigrate to Israel/US post-graduation, overrepresented at top programs etc.

and before 70s there were other reasons for this sort of discrimination. As most of the Jewish kids were much better prepared for entrance exams than the kids from rural areas (90% of Soviets at that time were coming from peasant families) - the state had to limit the number of Jewish students to give others a shot.

No its a long standing prejudice against Jews in Russia even post revolution

eg the Doctors plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot

See https://www.hias.org/lautenberg-amendment

That was confusing for a moment - the "Lautenberg Amendment" with which I'm familiar is an ex post facto ban on firearms ownership for those convincted of crimes of domestic violence.