OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY
Refusenik Ida Nudel
ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
M
ost knew him as a prominent bankruptcy attorney, but Martin L. Fried once toured with the Beatles in a rock band. Marty played the drums ex Insolvency Problems and sang with the Cyrkle, a band with a uptcies quirky spelling tions John Lennon ptcy created for the nts group. The uts Cyrkle had ons MARTY FRIED Marty Fried One of only 11 attorneys in Michigan two major hit certified by the American Board of Certification as a records in 1966, Business Bankruptcy Specialist. “Red Rubber Ball” and “Turn Down Day.” ce representing While Rebecca Fried knew ers of our firm “my whole life my dad was n Detroit area. in the Cyrkle,” her dad typi00 cally didn’t dwell on the past. AARON SCHEINFIELD Frequent lecturer to professional groups News of Marty’s rock-n-roll 4 (fax) on topics related to real estate and bankruptcy. glory days came as a surprise .NET 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 celebration was held on Sept. 10. Hailing from Neptune, N.J., he was the oldest of three children 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 drummer was needed. Bandmate Don Dannemann recalled that at the Interfraternity
Fried, PC
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Weekend in 1964 the Marty Fried is in the crowd “went wild for us.” That success got the upper left. band to Atlantic City and got them discovered by only a handful of attorneys in Nat Weiss, a business partner the state who were certified of Beatles’ manager Brian business bankruptcy specialEpstein. Weiss brought the ists. “His other role at our band to Epstein’s attention. firm was to teach attorneys to Epstein signed the band to become great researchers and a management contract that writers,” said law partner Stan “got us to Columbia Records,” Bershad. Dannemann said. “That got Rebecca said her dad us to hear ‘Red Rubber Ball’ “made the world possible” and got us to play on the for her and her sister. “Dad entire Beatles tour. taught me to program a comRebecca said her dad puter, how to fix things.” He recalled when the Cyrkle was also “a loving grandfather opened for the Fab Four, it who brought the best toys.” was “a solid wall of screamFriend John Hertzberg ing, even for the opening act, noted, “Marty was the kindso we couldn’t hear anything.” est, nicest person I ever met. The band eventually broke He was there for you because up in 1968. he didn’t know any other way The Cyrkle was part of a to be.” lawsuit filed against Columbia Martin Fried was the Records. “It resulted in a father of Jessica (Sonmez) change in the structure of how Sahutoglu and Rebecca recording artists get paid,” (Benjamin Mullins) Fried; Rebecca said. Marty received grandfather of Defne royalties all his life for his Sahutoglu, and Howard work in the band, she said. Martin Mullins-Fried; She believes the lawsuit brother and brother-in-law inspired him to become of Stephen (Judith) Fried an attorney, in addition to and Sandra Goldstein; uncle having a father-in-law and of Michael, Benjamin and brother-in-law who were Samuel Fried; and compansuccessful attorneys in Metro ion of Susan Dodd. He also is Detroit. Marty graduated survived by his former wife, from Wayne State University Suzanne Fried and several Law School in 1972 and was cousins. admitted to the Michigan Bar Donations may be made to the following year. Michigan Humane Society, Marty spent the last 35 30300 Telegraph Road, Suite years of his career with 220, Bingham Farms, MI Goldstein Bershad & Fried 48025; (866)-mhumane; in Southfield. He was one of michiganhumane.org.
Ida Nudel, the diminutive Prisoner of Zion who made aliyah after winning her battle against the Soviet Union, died on Ida Nudel 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 struggle 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 banished 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.”
BRIAN HENDLER/JTA
Lawyer Was a Rock Star
STEVE LINDE JERUSALEM POST
