Ida Milgrom

{{Short description|Soviet Jewish human rights activist (1908–2002)}} {{use mdy dates|date=July 2020}}

'''Ida Petrovna Milgrom''' (1908 – 2002) helped to lead an international campaign to free her son, Soviet dissident and former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel Natan Sharansky.<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/03/world/ida-milgrom-94-dies-helped-free-a-son-held-by-soviets.html |title=Ida Milgrom, 94, Dies; Helped Free a Son Held by Soviets |author=Christopher Lehmann-Haupt |date=May 3, 2002 |access-date=2025-11-23}}</ref> After her daughter-in-law was permitted to leave the Soviet Union, she continued her "nine-year battle,"<ref name=IdaMilgrom.LATimes>{{cite news |newspaper=The Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-may-04-me-ida4-story.html |title=Ida Milgrom, 94; Sought Dissident Son's Freedom |author=Dennis McLellan |date=May 4, 2002 |access-date=2025-11-23}}</ref> working from within the USSR, along with her older son Leonid.<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002/>

Natan was released in 1986; Milgrom was allowed to leave later that same year.<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002/>

Even after Sharansky was in Israel, "she logged thousands of miles traveling to meet with government officials" so that the remaining "thousands of Soviet dissidents and refuseniks" could also leave the Soviet Union.<ref name=IdaMilgrom.LATimes/>

==Biography== [[File:Ida Milgrom, Avital Sharansky, and Natan Sharansky.jpg|thumb|right|Ida Milgrom, Avital Sharansky, and Natan Sharansky]]

Born in 1908 in Balta, Ukraine, Ida Petrovna Milgrom was a promising pianist who "attended the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory for a time."<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002/> "Struck by the extraordinary music coming" from a fellow student playing, "she decided that the piano was not for her" and, at Odesa Polytechnic Institute Milgrom "trained as an engineer-economist."<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002/> She served as "an economics adviser to ministers in the Ukrainian government."<ref name=IdaMilgrom.WashPost/>

Leonid described his mother as "a wise woman who taught her children to treat people with kindness."<ref name=IdaMilgrom.WashPost>{{cite news |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/05/04/ida-milgrom-dies/8f37c9d7-adbb-4216-a6d9-e69dbbb77b21/ |title=Ida Milgrom Dies |date=May 4, 2002 |access-date=2025-11-23}}</ref>

Her husband Boris Shcharansky died in 1980. "Besides her sons, Ms. Milgrom is survived by four grandchildren."<ref name=IdaMilgrom.NYT2002/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milgrom, Ida}} Category:Soviet emigrants to Israel Category:Israeli people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:1908 births Category:2002 deaths Category:People from Balta, Ukraine