Could her family have been part 'of' the system and she's carried their beliefs into her adulthood?
It very well could be; based upon my first-hand up-close experiences and observations during the mid-1990s when I was there--not as a tourist, and not sponsored by any organization; just there on my own for a couple of years--there were lots and lots of "ex"-Communists who were the only ones who had the clout and the money to come here.
Being Communists and all that, I have no idea why they wished to leave the Paradise of the Workers and Peasants.
So, really, unless an ex-Soviet now a resident in this country is Jewish or a refugee, I take that person with not a grain of salt, but a whole block of salt.