Biography

Golda Meir (Hebrew:


גּוֹלְדָּה מֵאִיר
(help·info))
(born Golda Mabovitz;
May 3,
1898 –
December 8,
1978) was one of
the founders of the State of
Israel.

Meir served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth

Prime Minister of Israel from
March 17,
1969 to
June 3,
1974. Golda Meir
was the "Iron
Lady" of Israeli politics years before the
epithet was
coined for

Margaret Thatcher.

David Ben-Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet." She is
the first (and to date only) female

Prime Minister of Israel, and was the third female Prime Minister in the
world^[1].

Birth and early life

She was born as Golda Mabovitz in
Kiev in the

Russian Empire (today
Ukraine), to
Blume Naidtich and Moshe Mabovitz. She wrote in her

autobiography that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up the
front door in response to rumors of an imminent
pogrom. Living
conditions in the

Pale of Settlement were tough; she and her two sisters (Sheyna and Tzipke)
were often hungry and cold. Her other five siblings had died in their childhood.
Golda especially looked up to Sheyna. Her father left for the

United States in 1903. In the following years the rest of the family stayed
in Pinsk and
Golda's big sister Sheyna was engaged in Zionist-Revolutionary activity, which
endangered her. It impressed young Golda very much, but compelled the rest of
the family to follow Moshe to the United States in
1906.

Emigration to the United States, 1906

They settled in

Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
There, Golda's father worked as a carpenter and her mother ran a grocery store.
When Golda was only eight years old, she had to oversee the store for a short
time each morning as her mother was buying supplies at the market.

Golda Meir attended the Fourth Street School (now

Golda Meir School) across from the

Schlitz Brewing Complex from
1906 to
1912. It was here
that Golda undertook her first public works project, by organizing a fundraiser
to pay for her classmate's textbooks. After forming the American Young Sisters
Society, she rented a hall and scheduled a public meeting for the event. Despite
not having known English upon entry, Golda graduated as valedictorian of her
class.

When Golda was 14 she began attending North Division High School and took
part-time jobs to pay expenses. Her mother suggested that she give up school for
work and marry. Golda rebelled and ran away to

Denver, Colorado where her older sister, Sheyna, was living. She stayed for
about a year in a duplex at 1606 Julian Street. Golda attended North High School
there and met Morris Myerson, a sign painter, whom she would later marry.

In 1913 Golda returned to Milwaukee and re-enrolled at North Division,
graduating in 1915. While there, she was an active member of the

youth movement, Habonim (which merged with the like-minded Dror in 1982 to
form
Habonim Dror). She participated in

public speaking at meetings and in her speeches often advocated for

Socialist Zionism. Often she hosted visitors from

Palestine.

Upon her graduation from the Milwaukee State Normal School (now

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where the library is named after her) she
taught in the public schools. She formally joined the Labor
Zionist
Organization in 1915.

Golda and Morris married in 1917 and began planning to make
aliyah
(emigration to the land of Israel, then part of various Ottoman provinces). The
couple and her elder sister Sheyna emigrated to the

British Mandate of Palestine in 1921.

Emigration to Palestine, 1921

Golda and Morris wanted to join a
kibbutz. She
applied to join Kibbutz Merhavia and was turned down at first, but eventually
was accepted into the community. Her duties there included picking
almonds,
planting trees, caring for chickens, and running the kitchen. She also began to
emerge as a leader. Her kibbutz chose her to represent them at
Histadrut,
the General Federation of Labor. By 1924, her husband had grown tired of the
kibbutz life and they left.

They lived briefly in
Tel Aviv,
before settling in
Jerusalem.
There they had two children, son Menachem and daughter Sarah. In 1928, Golda was
elected secretary of the Women's Labor Council of Histadrut. This required her
to move to Tel Aviv, but her husband stayed in Jerusalem while the children
stayed with her. Morris and Golda grew apart but never divorced. Morris died in
1951.

She grew increasingly influential in Histadrut, which evolved into a shadow
government for the yet to be born nation of Israel. In 1946, the British cracked
down on the Zionist movement in Palestine. They arrested many of its leaders.
Golda, however, was never arrested. She gradually took charge of the
organization. She negotiated with the British, but also kept in contact with the
growing guerrilla movement.

Political life prior to becoming Prime Minister

From 1949 to 1956, Meir was the Israeli Minister of Labor. In 1956, she
became Foreign Minister under

Prime Minister

David Ben-Gurion. The previous Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, had ordered
that all members of the foreign service Hebraicize their last names. Golda had
ignored that order as amabassador, but now that she was becoming Foreign
Minister herself, Ben-Gurion asked Golda to change her name to a

Hebrew name. She chose Meir, meaning "makes a light".

In the early 1960s she was diagnosed with
lymphoma,
which she kept hidden because she thought others might deem her unfit for
service. She resigned from the Cabinet in 1965, citing illness and exhaustion of
her years of service. At first, she returned to her modest life, but she was
soon called back into service. She served as Secretary General of the

Labor Party for eight months and retired again on
August 1,
1968.

Prime Minister

After
Levi Eshkol died suddenly on
February
26, 1969, the
party chose her to succeed him as Prime Minister. Meir came out of retirement to
take office on
March 17 and served in that role until 1974. When Meir became Prime
Minister, Israel was brimming with confidence, having won a decisive victory
over the Arabs and capturing large areas of territory in the
Six Day
War. Nonetheless, Meir had to deal with the continuing Egyptian shelling of
Israeli forces along the Suez Canal in the

War of Attrition.

Operation Wrath of God

Following the 1972 Munich murders at the summer Olympic Games, Meir appealed
to the world to "save our citizens and condemn the unspeakable criminal acts
committed"

[1]. Meir and the Israeli Defense Committee felt that the world did not
adequately respond and therefore

authorized the
Mossad to kill

Black September and
PFLP operatives wherever they could be found (Morris 1999). Steven
Spielberg's movie

Munich (2005) was loosely based on these events, as written in the novel


Vengeance by
George
Jonas.

1973 Yom Kippur War

Israeli intelligence was never entirely sure if war was indeed impending or
not. The day before the war was set to begin, Israeli intelligence was able to
finally verify that war was indeed imminent. Six hours before
the
war was set to begin, Meir met with
Moshe
Dayan and Israeli general
David
Elazar. While Dayan argued that the war might not even start, Elazar wanted
to launch a pre-emptive strike on
Syrian forces.
Meir considered both options and then decided not to launch a pre-emptive
strike. Meir made this decision because she believed that Israel could not
depend on European countries to supply Israel with military goods as European
countries were under the threat of an Arab oil embargo and trade boycott. She
felt that the only country who would come to Israel's assistance would be the
United States, and Meir feared that by launching a pre-emptive strike, the U.S.
would be less likely to do so. In hindsight, this was probably a wise decision,
as the U.S. launched

Operation Nickel Grass.

Henry Kissinger later verified Meir's fears by stating that if Israel had
launched the pre-emptive strike, Israel would not have received "so much as a
nail".

Resignation

Following the 1973
Yom
Kippur War, Meir's government was clouded by internal squabbles among the
governing coalition and had to face serious questions over strategic
misjudgments as well as the general lack of leadership that resulted in the
unanticipated
Yom
Kippur War. On
April 11,
1974, Golda Meir
resigned leadership, to be succeeded by

Yitzhak Rabin on
June 3,
1974.

On December 8, 1978, Golda Meir died in

Jerusalem, Israel of cancer at the age of 80. She was buried on
Mount
Herzl, in Jerusalem.

Contributions

Israel established, 1948

Golda Meir was one of twenty-four people (and one of two women) who signed
the

Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on
May 14,
1948. She later
recalled, "After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a
schoolgirl and I read about those who signed the

Declaration of Independence, I couldn't imagine these were real people doing
something real. And there I was sitting down and signing a

declaration of independence."

The following day, Israel was attacked by joint forces from
Egypt,
Syria,
Lebanon,

Transjordan and
Iraq. Golda was issued Israel's first passport and went to the United States
to raise money for the fledgling nation.

When she returned, she was assigned to be the first ambassador to the
Soviet
Union. She served there briefly, leaving in 1949. During her stay in Moscow,
she attended high holiday services and was mobbed by thousands of Russian Jews
chanting her name; Stalin's repression of Jewish identity in the Soviet Union
made many observers wonder whether there was still a strong sense of community
but the crowd's welcoming treatment provided the answer. The picture on the back
of Meir's Israeli Shekel banknote is that of the crowd in Moscow surrounding her
and lifting her in happiness. She then entered the
Knesset
(Israeli Parliament) where she served continuously until 1974.

Achievements

Famous quotes