48 | SEPTEMBER 23 • 2021 

OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY

Ida Nudel, the diminutive 
Prisoner of Zion who 
made aliyah after win-
ning her battle against 
the Soviet Union, died on 
Sept. 14, 2021, at age 90. 
Known as the 
“Guardian Angel” for the campaign she 
led to provide humanitarian items for 
Prisoners of Zion in Soviet jails, Nudel 
— who was just 4’11” tall — was the 
best-known female refusenik.
She famously won the support of 
actress Jane Fonda, who visited her 
during her four years of exile in Siberia, 
and Liv Ullmann, who played her in a 
film based on her autobiography.
Calling her “a symbol of the strug-
gle for aliyah from the Soviet Union,
” 
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, 
“Ida Nudel was an exemplar of Jewish 
heroism for us all.
”
Born in 1931 in the Black Sea port 
of Novorossiysk, Nudel was refused an 
exit visa by the Soviet authorities on 
the grounds that she was privy to state 
secrets in her job as an accountant for 
the Moscow Institute of Hydrology and 
Microbiological Synthesis. 
For 16 years, she worked on behalf 
of imprisoned Soviet Jews, sending 
them gifts, smuggling vitamins into 
their prisons, submitting court appeal 
applications and offering their families 
support.
She organized a hunger strike to 
protest the arrest of another refusenik, 
Vladimir Markman. She lost her job, 
and after placing a protest poster in 
1978 in her apartment which read, 
“KGB, Give Me My Visa,
” was ban-
ished to Siberia for four years. After 
being released in 1982, she was banned 
from returning to Moscow, suffering 
hardships in the Moldavian town of 
Bendery for five years.
Nudel received a hero’s welcome in 
Israel on Oct. 15, 1987. Holding her 
new Israeli ID card close to her heart 
and wiping away tears, she declared: 
“The moment came. I am on the soil of 
my people: at home.
” 

Refusenik Ida Nudel

STEVE LINDE 
JERUSALEM POST 
Lawyer Was 
a Rock Star

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
M

ost knew him as a 
prominent bank-
ruptcy attorney, 
but Martin L. Fried once 
toured with the Beatles in a 
rock band.
Marty played the drums 
and sang with the Cyrkle, 
a band with a 
quirky spelling 
John Lennon 
created for the 
group. The 
Cyrkle had 
two major hit 
records in 1966, 
“Red Rubber Ball” and “Turn 
Down Day.
” 
While Rebecca Fried knew 
“my whole life my dad was 
in the Cyrkle,
” her dad typi-
cally didn’t dwell on the past. 
News of Marty’s rock-n-roll 
glory days came as a surprise 
to many people after he died 
of pancreatic cancer on Sept. 
1, 2021. The Bingham Farms 
resident was 77.
Marty’s longstanding 
wish was honored to donate 
his body to Wayne State 
University Medical School in 
Detroit. A memorial celebra-
tion was held on Sept. 10. 
Hailing from Neptune, N.J., 
he was the oldest of three chil-
dren of Frances (Schnitzer) 
and Emanuel Fried. He 
earned a bachelor’s degree in 
physics in 1966 at Lafayette 
College in Easton, Pa. 
Marty joined the 
Rhondells band on campus 
in 1963 when a new drum-
mer was needed. Bandmate 
Don Dannemann recalled 
that at the Interfraternity 

Weekend in 1964 the 
crowd “went wild for 
us.
” That success got the 
band to Atlantic City 
and got them discovered by 
Nat Weiss, a business partner 
of Beatles’ manager Brian 
Epstein. Weiss brought the 
band to Epstein’s attention.
Epstein signed the band to 
a management contract that 
“got us to Columbia Records,
” 
Dannemann said. “That got 
us to hear ‘Red Rubber Ball’ 
and got us to play on the 
entire Beatles tour.
Rebecca said her dad 
recalled when the Cyrkle 
opened for the Fab Four, it 
was “a solid wall of scream-
ing, even for the opening act, 
so we couldn’t hear anything.
” 
The band eventually broke 
up in 1968.
The Cyrkle was part of a 
lawsuit filed against Columbia 
Records. “It resulted in a 
change in the structure of how 
recording artists get paid,
” 
Rebecca said. Marty received 
royalties all his life for his 
work in the band, she said.
She believes the lawsuit 
inspired him to become 
an attorney, in addition to 
having a father-in-law and 
brother-in-law who were 
successful attorneys in Metro 
Detroit. Marty graduated 
from Wayne State University 
Law School in 1972 and was 
admitted to the Michigan Bar 
the following year.
Marty spent the last 35 
years of his career with 
Goldstein Bershad & Fried 
in Southfield. He was one of 

only a handful of attorneys in 
the state who were certified 
business bankruptcy special-
ists. “His other role at our 
firm was to teach attorneys to 
become great researchers and 
writers,
” said law partner Stan 
Bershad.
Rebecca said her dad 
“made the world possible” 
for her and her sister. “Dad 
taught me to program a com-
puter, how to fix things.
” He 
was also “a loving grandfather 
who brought the best toys.
”
Friend John Hertzberg 
noted, “Marty was the kind-
est, nicest person I ever met. 
He was there for you because 
he didn’t know any other way 
to be.
”
Martin Fried was the 
father of Jessica (Sonmez) 
Sahutoglu and Rebecca 
(Benjamin Mullins) Fried; 
grandfather of Defne 
Sahutoglu, and Howard 
Martin Mullins-Fried; 
brother and brother-in-law 
of Stephen (Judith) Fried 
and Sandra Goldstein; uncle 
of Michael, Benjamin and 
Samuel Fried; and compan-
ion of Susan Dodd. He also is 
survived by his former wife, 
Suzanne Fried and several 
cousins. 
Donations may be made to 
Michigan Humane Society, 
30300 Telegraph Road, Suite 
220, Bingham Farms, MI 
48025; (866)-mhumane; 
michiganhumane.org. 

BRIAN HENDLER/JTA

Ida Nudel 

Marty Fried

Goldstein Bershad & Fried, PC
Professional Corporation

Attorneys Specializing in Creative Solutions to Complex Insolvency Problems

Chapter 7 and 13 Bankruptcies
Chapter 11 Reorganizations
Tax Relief in Bankruptcy
Credit Card Settlements
Out-of-Court Workouts
Short Sale Negotiations
Foreclosure Relief
Asset Protection
Receiverships
Collections

Marty Fried 
is in the 
upper left.

