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Nov. 17, 2006
She was a tough but tender PM
Golda Meir loomed large in Israelis' hearts and minds, long after
she stepped down.
EUGENE KAELLIS
As a mature woman, Golda Meir not only looked like the beloved
bubbe she was, she also had the traits: warmth, wisdom, kindliness
and love; but it was evident her love could be "tough love."
She was also totally unpretentious. As Israel's prime minister,
she preferred cabinet meetings in her home, where she would cook
dinner for the ministers.
Meir came to Zionism at an early age. She spoke passionately at
street corners in Milwaukee, Wis., where her family had moved to
escape the problems and dangers of poor Jews living in Ukraine.
In the United States, to eke out a livelihood for their family,
her father became a railroad worker and her mother ran a small grocery.
Moshe Mabovitz could not abide his daughter's public agitation for
socialist Zionism. Rushing to the corner where Golda was in the
act of disobeying him, he intended to drag her home "by her
braid," as he'd threatened. Instead, he was enthralled by her
passionate oratory and abandoned his opposition.
In 1917, Golda married Morris Myerson, a sign painter whom she'd
met while living in Denver with her sister. Whatever Morris's expectations,
Golda was evidently not going "to settle down." After
the wedding, barely 19, under "orders" from Poale Zion,
she left her new husband to travel across the United States and
Canada raising funds. As one of her friends noted, Golda belonged
to Zionism and Morris belonged to Golda.
After the First World War, Britain was awarded a mandate over Palestine,
largely because British forces had been successful against the Ottoman
Turks, allied with Germany. Five weeks before General Allenby's
entry into Jerusalem, Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary,
had made a declaration, endorsed by the Allied powers, stating that
Britain viewed "with favor the establishment in Palestine of
a national home for the Jewish people." Meir was ecstatic:
"I felt," she said, "there is indeed a God, there
is justice!"
Four years later, in 1921, after a meeting with David Ben-Gurion,
who was touring the States, Meir (the Hebraicized version of her
name) made a decision. She left America and, along with her reluctant
husband, moved to Palestine.
They joined a kibbutz in a northern, marshy, malaria-ridden region.
Golda loved being a kibbutznik. She could accept the work, the poor
facilities, the isolation, the daily doses of quinine. As long as
she believed her activity brought closer the dream of a Jewish state,
she was happy with whatever she did: raising chickens, picking almonds,
taking care of children – all the while studying Hebrew and
Arabic.
Morris, however, could not adjust. Barely two years later, they
had to leave the kibbutz and move to Tel-Aviv, where he worked as
a bookkeeper and Golda took in laundry. These, she said later, were
the worst years of her life.
In 1928, her situation improved. She became secretary of the Women's
Labor Council and its representative to Histadrut, the Zionist
Labor Federation. Meir returned to the United States for two years
in the '30s to serve as national secretary of the Pioneer Women's
Organization. Through the war years and after, she held various
offices. In 1945, when the British arrested most of the executive
members of the Jewish Agency, she held the top position in the Yishuv
(the Jewish community in the territory). Touring America, she raised
more than $50 million.
Meir, bold as ever, could act on impulse, a trait that marked her
life. Disguised as an Arab woman, she crossed the border and met
with King Abdullah of Jordan in a failed attempt to convince him
not to attack the new Jewish state. Meir was one of the signers
of Israel's Proclamation of Independence and became the only woman
on the Council of State.
Shortly thereafter, she was appointed Israel's first ambassador
to Moscow. In one instance, when she was leaving Rosh Hashanah services,
she was mobbed by a jubilant crowd of 40,000 Jews exhibiting definitely
"un-Soviet behavior." To Stalin, always mistrustful of
Jews, this was a major embarrassment and, until his death, he promoted
a lingering, murderous pogrom against prominent Soviet Jewish cultural
and political figures.
Meir had by now joined Mapai, Israel's Labor party, and was elected
to the first Knesset. She became minister of labor and helped create
Israel's national insurance plan. She remembered this time as the
happiest of her life, "building modern housing for people who
have lived in huts, even in caves."
In 1956, she became Israel's foreign affairs minister. While not
a "hawk" in the conventional sense of the word, Meir believed
very strongly that force must be met with force. Ben-Gurion, in
what, from present perspectives, might be considered a sexist remark,
but nonetheless one of admiration, called her "the only man
in my cabinet."
Having a woman in leadership brought a fresh point of view. At one
time, the cabinet was wrestling with a decision about how to protect
women from an unknown serial rapist. When someone suggested a curfew
for them, Meir retorted that it was not women who were doing the
raping and that perhaps they should consider a curfew for men.
When, in February 1969, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly,
Mapai chose Meir to become Israel's prime minister, to avoid a factional
battle. Always striving for peace, she called for "face to
face" talks with Arab leaders. At that time, Israeli leaders
still felt that by negotiating with neighboring Arab countries,
they could also solve the problems of Palestinians living in the
West Bank and Gaza. This obviously turned out to be unrealistic.
The 1967 cease-fire ending the Six Day War was increasingly violated
by Israel's enemies. Although polls in Israel showed almost complete
support for Meir's foreign and defence policies, her rebukes to
Nahum Goldmann, head of World Jewish Congress, for his efforts to
meet with Egypt's Gamal Nasser and her open support for the United
States in its war in Southeast Asia created significant disfavor
in Israel.
Meir's husband died in Tel-Aviv in 1951. They were never divorced.
After their breakup, Meir undoubtedly had romantic liaisons. She
was surrounded by interesting, often brilliant, men and she enjoyed
her attractiveness to them. In this regard, however, she was discreet:
"You don't live your intimate life in the open," she said.
Unquestionably, being a woman, she was more likely to set minds
spinning and tongues wagging.
Shortly after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, following criticism that
Israel was unprepared, reacted too slowly and came close to defeat,
Meir resigned as prime minister.
Meir was undoubtedly a "tough" figure in Israeli politics
and in foreign and military affairs. She understood that Israel
could not afford territorial accommodations that threatened its
security because it might not then have the space or speed to withstand
a major attack.
Meir, who was almost never without a cigarette, died of cancer in
December 1978.
Her image as everyone's bubbe was based on her engaging smile, her
eyes, still soulful as she aged, and her evident honesty and candor.
She once said that her ultimate goal was that Jews no longer need
be dependent on people who felt sorry for them. Being a good bubbe
never interfered with her being a resolute defender of Israel.
Eugene Kaellis is a retired academic living in New Westminster.
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