Celebrating Jewish icons: Golda Meir

 

In the face of ongoing violence and strife in the Middle East, it is important to remember just how much difference one person can make. That despite what may seem like intractable conflicts and hopeless disagreements, good people can still make an impact.

One such person was Golda Meir. You may know her as Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, but Golda started as just another Jewish girl lost in a world that seemed set against her. So she changed it.

Like many Jews of her generation, Golda's youth was characterized by uncertainty, fear, and travel. Born in Keiv, Russia in 1898, as Goldie Mabovitch, she would spend her earliest years witnessing firsthand the madness and terror of antisemitism run amok. One of her earliest memories was of her father boarding their home's windows and doors, desperate to protect his family from the racist violence of the 1905 Keiv pogrom. The brutal act of mob violence would claim the lives of over 100 Jewish people and serve as an impetus for  the Mabovitch family to flee the mounting hostility of Europe and relocate to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Golda flourished in America, finding her natural aptitude for leadership and a fierce intellectual voice. As a teenager she would lead fundraising efforts to supply disadvantaged students with text books and was named valedictorian of her graduating class. Despite her mother's desire to see her marry and settle into the stable life of a housewife, Golda had other plans. She went to live with her sister and her husband, the Korngolds, in Denver for a time. The Korngold house thrived on debate and academia, and it was here that Golda became passionate about the ideals of Zionism, the promise of returning Jews scattered around the world by diaspora to a shared homeland. It was also where she would meet her future husband, Morris Meyerson.

Golda would return to Milwaukee for a period of time to teach, but felt the call to return to the Holy Land. She was active in a local Yiddish Folks Schule alongside Morris, and despite the chaos of WWI throwing their plans for resettlement into disarray for a time, the two were able emigrate to Palestine in 1921, officially Hebraizing their name to Meir.

In Palestine, Golda's natural inclination for leadership would drive her forward. She would represent her fellow workers of her kibbutz, advocating for hardworking families trying to provide for their own after resettlement. In 1924 the couple again moved to Jerusalem where Golda's political efforts only intensified. She was elected secretary of Moetzet HaPoalot (Working Women's Council) and served as a delegate to the World Zionist Organization. All efforts to improve the lives of Jewish people around the world and bring them back to their rightful home.

Her political efforts made her a natural choice as the Jewish observer at the Évian Conference, a multinational discussion on the plight of Jewish refugees' fleeing Nazi persecution and violence. As most of the various nations invited all expressed sympathy for the Jewish people, but demurred when it came to making concrete promises or efforts to actually help them, Golda became more and more convinced that if the Jewish people were to survive they would need their own state to protect them.

During WWII, Golda fought fiercely for the the Zionist movement and advocated for Jewish immigrants. She agitated for the need of a Jewish state, organizing fundraisers and speaking groups. She also demonstrated on behalf of Jewish refugees being held under arrest in Britain for violating British immigration policy, something done by necessity of the madness and strife gripping continental Europe.  

Golda was one of the signatures on Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. A bracing triumph for someone who had dedicated her life to ensuring Jewish independence. But she wasn't done yet.

Golda would serve in the Israeli government as minister to Moscow, then later as an elected member of the Israeli Parliament, a career spanning decades of tireless work. She would be one of the voices behind the National Insurance Act of 1954, a social safety net that would protect the most vulnerable Israelis, she helped establish thousands of homes, hospital, and schools for arriving Jewish resettlers, and would serve as Foreign Minister during the Suez crisis. 

Diagnosed with lymphoma in the early '60s, Golda wished to retire from public life. However, despite her serious medical condition, she answered the call of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to serve as secretary-general of Mapai. After Eshkol's sudden death in '69, Golda was elected as Israels' first woman Prime Minister. 

It was not a fortunate time to be Prime Minister, and her term was marked by conflict. She negotiated agreements with Egypt over on-going territory disputes, navigated Israel through the height of the Cold War hostilities between competing super powers who would both attempt to use Israel like a chess piece, and through the trauma of the Munich Olympics. Golda herself authorized the Mossad to retaliate against the leaders and agents of the Black September terrorist group - a defender of her people at all times.

As Prime Minister, Golda Meir had the unenviable task of dealing with the events of the Yom Kippur War, a conflict that posed a immediate threat to the Jewish people, but also placed the Israeli government in a precarious position of alienating their Western allies if they were perceived as being too aggressive or hostile in meeting the threat. Golda tried to find a middle-line, mobilizing the full deployment of Israel’s forces, but in a defensive posture rather than launching a preemptive attack. The political landscape of Israel’s government would be preoccupied with infighting and recriminations in the aftermath, eventually leading an ailing Golda to resign in 1974.

While Golda would succumb to her cancer in 1978, her legacy lives on today in the hearts and homes of Israeli citizens. 

Born into a world characterized strife, fear, and intimidation, Golda Meir did not falter, turn away, or wait for someone else to make a change. She worked tirelessly to improve the lives of Jews around the world, fought for the rights of immigrants, the dignity of the downtrodden and disadvantaged, and the right for Jews to live safely and control their own destiny with their own state. Her example should be an inspiration to us all.