Ida Nudel, back in Moscow after four years ot exile in Siberia, told relatives “Don’t be so optimistic” that she will be allowed to leave the Soviet Union soon. In a telephone conversation with her sister in Israel, liana Friedman yesterday, Nudel said “It won’t happen quickly, as you would wish.”
She said an “Ovir” Soviet Visa Office) official had told her that her suffering in exile did not automatically give her preferential rights in her application — now resubmitted — to emigrate. She was told first to get a formal permit to resume living in Moscow, and then a formal affidavit from her relatives in Israel, part of the bureaucratic process.
During her Siberian exile she said, she had received some 10,000 letters from well-wishers in 42 countries. They included letters from U.S. Congressmen and Israeli school children.
World Zionist Organization chairman, Leon Dulzin cabled Nudel this week, “We hope to see you here among us . . . . The Jewish world followed anxiously your trial and exile . . . . you are a symbol of strength of spirit.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.