Russian Jew Ida Nudel never intended to be a revolutionary, that is, until 16 Russians were arrested while attempting to flee religious persecution in the Soviet Union.
Russian Jewry under the Soviet Union
When the communist revolution swept Russia in 1917, many Jews backed the cause, hoping the promise of equality for all would mean an end to antisemitism.
However, the new Soviet Union was largely anti-religious, and religious practice was harshly suppressed.
While the USSR was against Jewish religious practice, it did support the creation of the State of Israel.
USSR leader Joseph Stalin appreciated the socialist values in Israel, such as the kibbutzim which operated as fully communist compounds, and hoped to bring Israel into the Soviet sphere of influence.
When the Israeli ambassador at the time, Golda Meir, made her first visit to Russia in 1948, Stalin welcomed her but wanted Meir to keep her distance from local Jews. Despite his wishes, tens of thousands of Jews lined up to see the future prime minister speak, cheering and shouting, “Golda, we are alive.”
Meir thanked the crowd for remaining Jewish under the pressure to assimilate to Soviet agnosticism, but the secret police sprinkled throughout the crowd were less than pleased. In the following months, dozens of Jews who attended the speech were sent into exile or imprisoned.
Stalin proceeded to dismantle every Jewish institution he could find and dismissed Jews from jobs in state security. Rumors began to spread that he was planning to incite a major pogrom to justify deporting Jews to labor camps in Siberia “for their own protection.”
Ida Nudel’s experiences with antisemitism
Nudel was in university as all of this took place. When Stalin accused Jewish doctors of trying to kill him in the early 1950s, her classmates began ignoring or taunting her with phrases like “Too bad Hitler didn’t finish the job” and “You should all be destroyed.”
Facing intensifying antisemitism, Nudel cut her classmates out of her life, finishing her degree friendless and alone.
Even after Stalin died, though, the persecution continued. Nudel realized that the USSR was no place for Jews, yet she still refused to leave. She had her family and her job and a little one-room apartment she had worked hard to buy.
A major development, though, pushed the situation for Soviet Jews over the edge.
The Soviet Union after the Six-Day War
In 1967, Israel defeated the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies in the Six-Day War, quadrupling its territory in less than a week.
Soviet Jews were ecstatic, even developing a secret handshake where they would cover one eye to emulate Israeli war hero Moshe Dayan.
The USSR worked hard to crack down on support for Israel, but some Jews still managed to establish Zionist youth groups and learn Hebrew as they prepared to one day make aliyah.
Meanwhile, USSR leadership was fuming since they had backed the Arab states that Israel had just defeated. Soviet weapons, tanks, and aircraft were left smoking in the wake of the war.
All this was happening while Israel began getting closer to the USSR.’s sworn enemy, the United States, and Soviet Jews began applying in droves to get exit visas to Israel.
Ties cut between the Soviet Union and Israel
The Soviet Union proceeded to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel and declared Zionists enemies of the state.
While some Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel, most were forced to stay in Russia as the Soviet Union made up all sorts of excuses to prevent them from leaving.
The Soviets weren’t ready to part with a highly-educated, talented population, and they were aware that if hundreds of thousands of Jews fled, it would give credence to claims of antisemitism in the USSR.
The Jews who had their exit visas denied were known as “refuseniks.” Some were fired from their jobs, some lost homes, and the Soviet secret police were constantly watching them. Often, the KGB did more than just spy, bullying and harassing refuseniks until they manufactured fake charges to use to sentence Jews to prison, exile, hard labor, and even death.
Nudel joins the fight
At first, Nudel wasn’t among those applying to emigrate. Only after three years did she get involved in the struggle against Soviet persecution.
The turning point came in June 1970, when 16 people were arrested in Leningrad after they tried to hijack a plane and escape to Israel.
Two of the hijackers were sentenced to death and the only woman among the hijackers was sent to the Gulag for 10 years of hard labor. At the trial, the woman told the court, “If you had not deprived us of our basic right to leave the Soviet Union, we would’ve simply purchased an airline ticket to Israel. Even now, I believe the day will come that I will be in Israel. A faith that has lasted 2,000 years is giving me my hope.” She proceeded to quote, in Hebrew, the verse from Psalms (137:5) “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand shrivel up.”
After hearing about the case, Nudel decided to take action. She eventually found an underground Hebrew teacher who connected her with the Zionist underground.
Nudel applied for an exit visa to join her family, who already had left for Israel, but was ultimately denied. Soon after, she was fired from her job and rejected from every other workplace by employers who told her, “We don’t need ‘that’ kind of person here.”
Since businesses refused to hire her, Nudel was put at risk of imprisonment since unemployment was a crime in the USSR.
She proceeded to throw herself into Zionist activism full-time, launching a hunger strike in the waiting room of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Nudel was later arrested at a protest, telling police officers, “give me my visa.” She left the police station unscathed.
Nudel continued to get more deeply involved as an activist. When a fellow advocate had his phone disconnected by the KGB, she offered them her own. She compiled lists of all the Jewish prisoners who had been arrested after being denied visas, sending them mail to remind them they were not alone.
The Gulag authorities returned the letters unopened, so Nudel wrote them asking for a detailed explanation of which sentences were objectionable. She never got an answer, but the letters started getting through to the prisoners regardless. Beyond letters, Nudel smuggled food, vitamins, and clothing to the prisoners and visited their families in solidarity.
Nudel also worked as a legal advocate, filing appeal after appeal for the prisoners who referred to her as the “Guardian Angel,” the “Angel of Mercy,” and “Mama.”
Western leaders start to back Nudel and refuseniks
As Nudel continued the fight, Jews all over the world and many Western leaders backed her and other Soviet Jewry activists.
College students in the U.S. held signs reading “I am my brother’s keeper” and “Let my people go.” Diplomats raised the issue at the United Nations and homemakers wrote impassioned letters to world leaders.
As support for the refuseniks grew, U.S. legislators passed a law conditioning trade with the Soviet Union on the release of the refuseniks.
“All we ask of the Soviets is decent humane treatment of people who desire to emigrate,” said U.S. Congressman Charles Vanik at the time.
Nudel exiled to Siberia
Nudel continued her work advocating for Soviet Jews in the following years. In 1978, she and her fellow activists planned protests in six locations around Moscow to support the refuseniks.
Nudel’s role was to hang a sign reading, “KGB, give me a visa to Israel.” As punishment for the basic request, she was exiled to four years in Siberia on charges of “malicious hooliganism.”
Nudel made herself a nuisance to all the authorities while in exile, wearing them down to leave her alone. A friend brought Nudel a puppy to help her get through the exile, who she named “Pizer,” a Hebrew word meaning “dispersed.”
Even after her release, Nudel was banned from leaving the USSR and she wasn’t even allowed to return to her apartment in Moscow or any other major city. Instead, she moved to a remote town in Moldova and worked to befriend local Jews.
Her activism landed her in trouble with the police once again, but at this point, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and Nudel was receiving widespread support from around the world.
Israeli President Chaim Herzog, the father of current Israeli President Isaac Herzog, left an empty place at his Passover table in Nudel’s honor. Actress Jane Fonda came to visit her in a show of support, and in February 1987, an Italian director made a dramatic film based on her story called “Farewell Moscow.”
Nudel finally gets her visa to Israel
Seventeen years after getting involved in refusenik activism, Nudel finally got her visa approved.
At first, Nudel thought the approval was some cruel trick, and it was only when the plane cleared Soviet airspace that she could finally relax. The crew congratulated her, and the pilot announced, “Ida Nudel, you are a free person.”
When she landed in Tel Aviv and disembarked with Pizer, Nudel was greeted by a crowd of thousands. Among the crowd was her sister, whom she hadn’t seen in 15 years, along with Fonda and the Israeli president. The U.S. Secretary of State called Nudel to congratulate her as well.
At the age of 56, Nudel was finally free after years of fighting. She spent the rest of her life advocating for human rights until her death in Israel on Sept. 14, 2021
