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Goldie Mabovitch was born to Moshe and Blume Mabovitch on May 3, 1898 in Kiev, Ukraine, then
part of Russia. She was one of eight children, five of whom died in infancy. Though she left Russia at a young age, the images
of anti-Semitic violence in Czarist Russia left a lasting impression on her.
At the age of 14, after a disagreement
with her parents about her career plans, Golda ran away to her sister Sheyna’s home in Denver. Over the years, Golda
dropped in and out of different schools, finally graduating from high school in 1915. Two years later she married Morris Meyerson.
At around the same time she became active in Poalei Zion, the Labor Zionists organization, traveling and leading protest marches.
In
1918 Golda attended the first convention of the American Jewish Congress in Philadelphia as the youngest delegate. Her enthusiasm
for Zionism grew and she insisted on making aliyah, despite Morris’s objections. In 1922, the Meyersons departed for
Tel Aviv. Golda and Morris joined Kibbutz Merhavia, but kibbutz life was not for Morris and after three years they left. Golda
and Morris began to see that their life goals and desires were very different, and they separated shortly afterwards but remained
friends for years.
At the age of 30, Golda became Secretary of the Women’s Labor Council. Later she became
one of the founders of Mapai, the Labor Party of the Land of Israel. She was elected to the Executive Committee of Histadrut,
the General Federation of Jewish Labor, becoming head of its Political Department and actively supported the struggle against
the restrictive British immigration policy.
In 1946, when male leaders of the Jewish community were being rounded
up, Golda was appointed head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, the de facto “government” of the
Jewish community in Palestine. When Israel declared independence in 1948, Golda was at the signing of the Israeli Declaration
of Independence and later traveled to America to raise $50 million dollars to support the new nation. Golda was elected to
the first Knesset. She declined David Ben-Gurion’s invitation to be Deputy Prime Minister, instead accepting the position
of Labor Minister, which allowed her to become directly involved with new immigrants and social programs.
The
Lavon Affair, an Israeli spying and terrorism incident in Egypt, came to light from 1954 to 1960 and caused a split between
Golda and Ben-Gurion over his involvement. Golda became angry at a man she once regarded as a hero and mentor and found it
hard to reconcile his great deeds with this one significant misdeed.
It was only in 1956 that Golda Meyerson
Hebraicized her name to Golda Meir, meaning “to burn brightly.” At this time she was named as Israel’s Foreign
Minister, a position she occupied during the 1956 Suez crisis. As Foreign Minister, Golda expanded Israel’s contact
with Third World countries, especially the sub-Saharan African states with which she stated Jews shared “the memory
of centuries of suffering.”
In 1963 Golda was diagnosed with cancer and in 1965, Golda retired and left
the government, declining Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s offer to become Deputy Prime Minister. But retirement was not
a realistic option for someone with Golda’s energy and ideals. She became the Secretary-General of Mapai in order to
unify the now fragmented political party.
In 1969, when Levi Eshkol died, Golda was seen as the one person who
could take over his role and keep the government together. She accepted the position of Prime Minister just days before her
71st birthday. During her five-year term, Golda became one of the first world leaders to deal with the growing threat of terrorism,
including the murder of Israeli athletes at the Olympic games in Munich, a problem that would plague Israel for years to come.
She led the country through the Yom Kippur Was and the subsequent Arab oil embargo.
In 1974, at the age of 76,
Golda retired again from government. She wrote her memoirs, My Life, and was called back to government service one last time
to be present at the momentous visit by Anwar Sadat of Egypt as he signed the first peace agreement between Israel and an
Arab state. Sadat is reported to have said he preferred to deal with her. “The Old Lady. She has guts, really.”
In 1978, Golda died at the age of 80.
Golda Meir had a lasting impact on Israel and the world. She was among
the most respected people of her time. It is difficult to find one thing that she said, out of so many, that really represents
her life and philosophy, but I will leave you with one of my favorites:
As for Jews being a chosen people, she
wrote, I never quite accepted that. It seemed, and still seems to me, more reasonable to believe, not that God chose the Jews,
but that the Jews were the first people that chose God, the first people in history to have done something truly revolutionary,
and it was that choice that made them unique.
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