Ida Nudel is a former refusenik and an Israeli activist. She was known as the "Guardian Angel" for her efforts to help the "Prisoners of Zion" in the Soviet Union.
Biography
Nudel was born in 1931 in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, in the Russian SFSR. In 1970, she heard of the Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair, and decided to emigrate. She contacted a Jew named Vladimir Prestin, a known refusenik who was secretly teaching Hebrew. In 1970 she first sought an exit visa to leave the USSR, saying she couldn't stand its discrimination against Jews. The authorities refused, saying she possessed state secrets she had learned working for the Moscow Institute of Planning and Production. Her sister, Elena, received permission to leave with her husband and son in 1972. In the summer of 1972 she organized a hunger strike at the central office of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to protest the arrest of refusenik Vladimir Markman. After four days, the police ended the strike by blocking their entry. She started a campaign for keeping contact with prisoners of Zion who called her "Mama" and "The angel of mercy". She spread word about items the prisoners needed and were permitted to possess, and requested them from visitors from all over the world. These included vitamins, warm underwear and chocolate, as well as pens, cigarettes, and three-dimensional postcards, that could be exchanged with the guards for small favors. She soon lost her job. In June 1978 she placed a banner in her apartment in Moscow reading "KGB, give me my visa to Israel". She was sentenced to four years of internal exile. She was sent to Krivosheino, on the River Ob, Siberia. For several months, she was the only woman in a factory dormitory, before finding herself a log hut and a job as a night guard at a truck yard. The KGB warned the residents of the village to stay away from her. She kept receiving letters of support and corresponding with prisoners of Zion. She was released on March 20, 1982, having been warned not to associate with any refuseniks or foreigners. After almost a year in constant movement as she wasn't allowed back to her flat in Moscow nor gain permit to live in any other place, she was permitted to live for five years in Bender, Moldova. From 1973 her sister Elena Fridman fought to bring her to Israel, contacting world leaders for help. In April 1984, Jane Fonda visited her, a meeting arranged by political activist and publicist Stephen Rivers. The two became friends and Fonda launched a campaign for Nudel's release. Others involved in the campaign included Liv Ullmann, and Israeli President, Chaim Herzog, left an empty place at his Passover table in her honor. On October 2, 1987, she was informed she had been granted an exit visa.
