Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and other Israeli lawmakers mourn the death of Ida Nudel, one of the most prominent activists to campaign for the right of Jews to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s and ’80s.
Bennett said Nudel who died in Israel on Tuesday at 90 years old is “a role model of a Jewish heroine.”
Yuli Edelstein, an Israeli lawmaker considers Nudel as “one of the great icons of the struggle for the right to immigrate to Israel from the Soviet Union.”
“Unfortunately, in recent years I accompany more and more of my brothers and sisters, Prisoners of Zion, in their final journey,” Edelstein tweeted.
Based on internet facts, Nudel was born in the Soviet Union in 1931 and came to prominence in the 1970s as a leading activist for the rights of jailed Soviet Jews, and as a refusenik — one of the thousands banned from leaving the country at the time.
Nudel sought permission to leave for 16 years, but Soviet authorities denied her an exit visa because she may have heard state secrets while working as an accountant at a state institution. Her sister and family were allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1971, leaving her behind.
She spent four years in Siberian exile hanging a poster on her Moscow balcony in 1978 that said ″KGB, Give Me My Visa.″
After she was released in 1982, she was banned from living in major Soviet cities.
In 1987, she was allowed to move to Israel, where she was greeted by thousands on the tarmac and welcomed by Israeli leaders.
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