{"id":37522,"date":"2021-09-24T01:45:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T08:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37522"},"modified":"2021-09-23T17:29:29","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T00:29:29","slug":"ida-nudel-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/09\/24\/ida-nudel-passes-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Ida Nudel passes away"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cover story in the Oct. 14, 1987, JWB announced that Ida Nudel would be granted her long-sought-after exit visa from the USSR.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the Jewish Independent<\/em>\u2019s special 90+1 issue this past May, reader Ronnie Tessler recalled one of the regular features of the JI<\/em>\u2019s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin<\/em> \u2013 the Gulag Record. Starting in 1978, the paper regularly reminded readers of how many days certain refuseniks were being held in the Gulag in the former USSR. One of the refuseniks featured, Ida Nudel, died this month, on Sept. 14, at the age of 90.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe subject of a worldwide campaign to free her, Nudel has been variously regarded as the \u2018soul of the Jewish immigration movement\u2019 in the USSR and the \u2018mother of Soviet refuseniks,\u2019\u201d reads the Oct. 14, 1987, JWB<\/em> cover story announcing that Nudel would be granted an exit visa from the USSR.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring her unflinching efforts to leave the Soviet Union, she has suffered innumerable hardships and indignities: almost four years imprisonment in abuse by the ever-present KGB, combined with travel restrictions amounting to incarceration,\u201d the article continues.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Ida Nudel and her dog arrive on a private Boeing jet, owned by American oil billionaire Armand Hammer, at Ben-Gurion Airport on Oct. 15, 1987. (photo by Harnik Nati \/ IGPO)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOccasionally, it was feared that, owing to diminished health, the 56-year-old Nudel would not live to see the Jewish state or be reunited with her sister Ilena Fridman, now residing in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fridman, the article notes, \u201cvisited Vancouver in October 1986 to lobby for Nudel\u2019s release at a NETWORK-sponsored Soviet Jewry rally here….\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to a concerted, long-term effort by Jewish groups worldwide, \u201curging Soviet officials to grant her an exit visa,\u201d Nudel was visited over the years \u201cby numerous delegations and dignitaries, including actress Jane Fonda, to bolster her spirits and encourage her efforts to leave the USSR.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder glasnost<\/em> (openness), Nudel was allowed greater freedom to move and meet with Western journalists and fellow dissidents. Last month [September 1987], she was permitted to travel from her home in Moldavia to Moscow to meet with a group of women refuseniks to discuss their plight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nudel was born in 1931, near Crimea, and \u201cwas raised by her maternal grandparents on a collective farm until she was 3,\u201d writes Sam Roberts in the New York Times<\/em> article about her death. \u201cHer father was killed in World War II fighting German troops near Stalingrad when she was 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter graduating in 1954 from the Moscow Institute of Engineering and Economics, Ms. Nudel worked for a construction company and later as an accountant for the Moscow Microbiological Institution,\u201d notes Roberts.<\/p>\n

As a result of her protests in the 1970s, Nudel lost her job and was exiled. When her exile ended, she settled in Moldova. After she was allowed to make aliyah, Nudel \u201coriginally lived in a rural settlement,\u201d writes Roberts, \u201cthen moved to the city of Rehovot, about 18 miles south of Tel Aviv, to be closer to her sister [who had been allowed to emigrate in 1972].\u201d<\/p>\n

Nudel wrote an autobiography, A Hand in the Darkness<\/em>, which was translated into English, and there was a movie made about her experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cover story in the Oct. 14, 1987, JWB announced that Ida Nudel would be granted her long-sought-after exit visa from the USSR. In the Jewish Independent\u2019s special 90+1 issue this past May, reader Ronnie Tessler recalled one of the regular features of the JI\u2019s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin \u2013 the Gulag Record. Starting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[450,4242,20870,3597,20871,5336],"class_list":["post-37522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-a-portrait-of-jewish-americans","tag-history","tag-ida-nudel","tag-politics","tag-refuseniks","tag-ussr"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}