Golda Meir
Golda Meir was born in Kiev ( Ukraine ) in 1898. She was the fourth elected Prime Minister of Israel , the first woman to hold this position in Israel and only the third woman to hold that position in the world. Often described as the ‘hard lady’ of Israeli politics (before the expression was applied to the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher), her rule was marked by the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria (1973).
Early Life
Economic hardship forced her family to emigrate to the United States in 1906, where they settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the age of 14, Meir rebelled against her parents who wanted her to leave school and get married. She lived with her sister in Denver, where she was exposed to debates on Zionism and women’s suffrage at intellectual evenings held in her sister’s home, and where she also met her future husband, Morris Meyerson. They married later when she was 19 in 1913.
Political Rise
In 1915, she joined the Labor Zionist youth movement, speaking at public meetings and hosting visitors from Palestine. Once there, they joined kibbutz Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley. Three years later, the couple left the kibbutz and settled in Jerusalem where they had two children. In 1928, Golda was elected secretary of Moetzet HaPoalot (Working Women’s Council), which required her to spend two years (1932–34) as an emissary in the United States. Upon her return, she joined the Executive Committee of the Histadrut (General Foundation of Labour) and moved up the ranks to become head of its Political Department.
When the prestate British Mandatory Authorities imprisoned most of the Jewish community’s senior leadership in 1946, she replaced Moshe Sharett as head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, the chief Jewish liaison with the British. Elected to the Executive of the Jewish Agency, she was active in fundraising in the United States to help cover the costs of the Israeli War of Independence, and became one of the State’s most effective spokesmen.
Meir was one of twenty-four signatories (two of them women) of the Israeli declaration of independence on 14 May 1948. S
Ministerial Roles 1948-1966
Meir held the following positions before being elected Prime Minister: Ambassador to Moscow, Labour Minister, and Foreign Minister. During this time, she hebraicized her surname to ‘Meir’, which means illuminate. She retired as Foreign Minister after being diagnosed with lymphoma.
Prime Minister 1969-1974
When Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly in early 1969, Meir was elected by her party to succeed him. She presided over two key events in Israeli history: the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (1972) and the Yom Kippur War (1973). Her decision to not order a pre-emptive strike led to in-party fighting; and she resigned the year after.
Golda Meir died in 1978 of cancer.