Ida Nudel, a former refusenik and Soviet Jewish activist, died in Israel on Tuesday at the age of 90.
Nudel arrived in Israel in 1987 after a 16-year battle against Soviet authorities to allow him to move to the Jewish state – including four years imprisoned in Siberia – which he won with the intervention of numerous international figures, including American actress Jane Fonda.
After settling in Israel, Nudel established the nonprofit organization “Mother to Mother,” which aimed to provide extracurricular activities for the children of Russian immigrants.
In mourning for his death, President Isaac Herzog recalled how his father, former President Chaim Herzog, was thrilled to meet Nudel when he first arrived in Israel.
“It is important to remember and commemorate the stories of the prisoners of Zion who changed the world with spirit and courage. May his memory be a blessing, ”Herzog wrote on Twitter.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also paid tribute to Nudel, saying it was “an example of Jewish heroism for all of us”.
Despite the high praise in Nudel, only 40 people attended his funeral, held on Tuesday in Tel Aviv.
Born in 1931, Nudel attempted to move to Israel for the first time after learning in 1970 of an attempt by a group of refuseniks to hijack a plane to flee the Soviet Union. She applied for an exit visa, but was refused by the Soviet authorities.
A demonstration outside the Jerusalem theater calling for the release of Zion prisoner Ida Nudel on June 6, 1979. (Chanania Herman / GPO)
Her sister Elena, her brother-in-law and her son received visas in 1972. The same year Nudel organized a hunger strike at the headquarters of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to protest the arrest of another refusenik. , Vladimir Markman.
He earned the nickname “Guardian Angel” with his campaign to provide humanitarian items to Zion prisoners, those imprisoned in the Soviet Union for Zionist activity.
Zion prisoner Ida Nudel and her dog arriving on a private Boeing plane, owned by billionaire Armand Hammer, at Ben Gurion Airport on October 15, 1987. (Nati Harnik / GPO)
However, she lost her job and after placing a protest poster against the KGB in her apartment in 1978 she was sentenced to four years of internal exile. She was released in 1982. Banned from returning to Moscow, she lived for five years in Bender, Moldova.
In 1987 she was granted an exit visa and on October 15 she arrived in Israel, where she was received by then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, his sister and thousands of Israelis who they welcomed.
He lived in Karmei Yosef and later in Rehovot.
Nudel remained active on issues of rights and politics. In 2005 he asked the High Court to ask him to force then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to use any means to save the lives of 15 Palestinian collaborators who were facing death sentences in the Authority’s prisons. Palestine. He also spoke out against Sharon’s planned unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which was finally brought forward later that year.
Zion prisoner Ida Nudel is received at Ben Gurion International Airport by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir after her release from a Soviet prison on October 15, 1987. (Nati Harnik / GPO)
In 2007 he filed another petition with the High Court to demand that the visitation rights of Hamas and Hezbollah prisoners be withdrawn as long as the Red Cross was prevented from visiting three hijacked IDF soldiers, Gilad Shalit, that Hamas had in the Gaza Strip. , and Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser arrested by Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the subsequent prisoner changes, Shalit was returned alive and the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser were returned to Israel.