Ida Nudel was born in 1931 in Novorossiysk. Ida was brought up by her grandparents, who worked on a Jewish collective farm. From them she learned Yiddish. Ida’s father was killed on the war, and she lived with her mother and a younger sister. Ida graduated from a university with a degree in economics and worked in different companies in Moscow and in the Urals. In 1970 she applied for the exit visa to go to Israel. Her mother has died by then, and her younger sister Elena with a family have soon received the exit visa . But Ida was not permitted to go, had been fired from her job and soon arrested and sentenced to the exile on charge in “malicious hooliganism”. Her “hooliganism” consisted in that Ida has hung out in a window of her apartment a banner with the demand to release her to Israel. Ida continued her struggle, but she fought not only for herself. She gathered and filed the information about prisoners of Zion and transferred it to the West, corresponded with sympathising foreigners, sent letters of protests to the Soviet authorities. After a wave of protests in the West Ida’s time in exile was reduced to four years. Her Moscow residence permit was nullified and she was sent to live in the city of Bendery in Moldova under the surveillance of KGB. But even there Ida continued her activity. The authorities answered with reprisals. An elderly woman whose health was undermined by prosecutions had to live in a barrack occupied by drunkards and petty criminals. Ida slept with a kitchen knife under the pillow. Ida’s troubles ended on October, 15th, 1987 when she arrived to Israel. At the airport she was met by her sister, many former prisoners of Zion whom she sponsored, and Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir. She lives in Karmey-Yosef, helps new repatriates, especially single mothers. Although Ida does not have her own children, she fairly was named “mother of prisoners of Zion”. Nathan Sharansky wrote that Ida “did everything to build a bridge across the abyss, separating the Gulag from the freedom”.
From the book “Great Jewish Women” by Elinor and Roberta Slater.
