GOLDA MEIR CENTER FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP - Draiman

GOLDA MEIR CENTER FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

In the Shadow of Washington

Golda Meir, Duta and the Call to Power

Norman Provizer

Article published in Kevin Cope (ed.), George Washington in and As Culture (New York: AMS Press, 2001).

On May 14, 1948, in a ceremony held before 200 people in the Tel Aviv Art Museum on Rothschild Boulevard, David Ben-Gurion announced "the establishment of a Jewish state...to be known as the state of Israel. " After Ben-Gurion read the new nation's Declaration of Independence, members of the National Council, representing the Jewish population in Palestine and the Zionist movement, came forward to sign the document. Among that group, there was a 50-year-old woman by the name of Golda Mabovitch Meyerson. [1] Ben-Gurion would be Israel's first prime minister, for he was clearly that nation's version of the "Indispensable Man," to borrow James T. Flexner's telling description of George Washington. But, to the surprise of many, Meyerson would not be far behind, emerging, after the sudden death of Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1969, as the leader of her nation, following long service as Minister of Labor (1949-1956) and Foreign Minister (1956-1966). And by then, she was known to the world as Golda Meir, the name she adopted in 1956. [2]

"Many leaders," in the words of Richard Nixon, whose time in the White House corresponded with Meir's tenure as prime minister, "drive to the top by the force of personal ambition. They seek power because they want power. Not Golda Meir. All her life she simply set out to do a job, whatever that might be, and poured into it every ounce of energy and dedication she could summon." [3] Other women (Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in 1960 and Indira Gandhi in India in 1966) had come to power in the twentieth century before Meir emerged as Israel's prime minister. Yet it was Meir who was the "female leader who owed nothing to the Appendage Syndrome" that brought those who came before her to power because of their family ties; and that, in the words of Antonia Fraser, was a truly "remarkable achievement." [4] Still, Meir never seemed to seek power. Instead, it appeared she only responded to the call to take it and, by so doing, became a political symbol of special importance.

In this sense, at least, the tough, but grandmotherly Meir captured the idea of servant-leadership described in the work of Robert Greenleaf. In Greenleaf's words, the servant-leader "begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve -- after leadership is established." [5] In short, it is the lure of power versus the call to exercise it through service.

This theme is very visible in a November 1972 interview with Meir conducted by the noted and strongly anti-Zionist Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. In response to Fallaci's question about possible retirement, the 74-year-old Israeli prime minister remarked that she sometimes thought, "To hell with everything, to hell with everybody, I've done my share now let others do theirs, enough, enough, enough! If I've stayed this long...it's out of duty and nothing else." In fact, Meir went on to give Fallaci a retirement date, October 1973, following the elections scheduled for that month. "Once they're over, good-bye!" [6]

History would make a liar of Meir. For instead of elections, October 1973 brought the Yom Kippur War. And, though she was bitterly attacked for allowing the surprise and costly assault to catch Israel sleeping, Meir retained the prime minister's office when the delayed elections were finally held. But, with the controversy over the Yom Kippur War still swirling about her, she submitted her resignation in April 1974, saying simply, "I have had enough," and left office in June of that year. [7] Meir discovered, as had George Washington, that, "Past glory was no defense against current criticism." [8]

When Meir was sent to the United States, starting in the late 1940s, to raise funds to support Israeli independence and the state's survival in the face of the Arab world's hostility, she has misgivings, still she went saying "I'm only a soldier called upon to do my duty." [9] The fund-raising trips in America (where the Ukrainian/Russian-born Meir arrived at age eight in 1906 and remained until her departure for Palestine in 1921 to pursue her vision of Socialist/Labor Zionism) were amazingly successful, leading Ben-Gurion to comment that when the history of Israel is written it will say "there was a Jewish woman who got the money to make the state possible." [10]

Despite such credentials and the imposing list of leadership positions she held, Meir never fit into the traditional framework of great leaders. She was, in this regard, much like George Washington. In his book on the symbolic Washington, Barry Schwartz notes:

In the European romantic tradition, a leader's greatness is revealed in his stunning use of power. By declaring that "Jarge Washington was no' great man," Thomas Carlyle gave clear voice to that tradition. Many years later, the German scholar Johannes Kuhn explained , "It is not easy for Europeans to comprehend the significance of a man like Washington. We are too accustomed to seek human greatness in unusual talents and gifts of an individual nature." [11]

It is those unusual talents and gifts that issue the self-generated call, in Weberian terms, for leaders to fulfill their sense of divine mission and for followers to do their duty and submit to the leader's commands. That approach, Schwartz continues, was not the ideal in 18th century America, which "stressed the republican virtues of obligation, sacrifice, and disinterestedness." [12] In a similar vein, Gordon Wood, in his foreword to the 1998 exhibition catalogue marking the 200th anniversary of Washington's death, writes:

In many respects Washington was an unlikely hero. To be sure, he had all the physical attributes of a classical hero...Yet those who knew him well and talked with him were often disappointed. He never seemed to have much to say. He was He was most certainly not what one today would call an intellectual...Jefferson, who was unusually generous in his estimate of his friends, said that Washington's "colloquial talents were not above mediocrity." He had "neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words." [13]

Further, Wood reminds us that Washington "was not a military genius, and his tactical and strategic maneuvers were not the sort that awed men." [14] But such an absence of Weberian charisma was not a fatal flaw. After all, as Daniel Boorstin argues:

The dominant American national heroes have not been charismatic figures...not men of superhuman inspiration expressing "a divine essence" in the mold of Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship; rather they seem to embody and illustrate the common virtues or what we like to believe are the common virtues of our society. [15]

Prudence, honor and virtue (in short, character) produced the symbolic Washington. As for Meir, she, unlike Washington, was the product of a democratic and egalitarian world (not that of "gentlemen" leaders) and possessed neither "the physical attributes of a classical hero" nor the drive of grandiose ambition. She always thought of herself as a worker, not a symbol. And while she was a political figure covered in part by Washington's shadow, Meir existed outside of it as well. For example, in answer to Fallaci's comment that Meir was "the symbol of Israel," the prime minister responded:

I, a symbol?! Some symbol! Are you maybe pulling my leg? You didn't know the great men who were really the symbol of Israel, the men who founded Israel and by whom it was influenced...I swear to you on my children and grandchildren that I've never put myself in the same category as a Ben-Gurion or a [Berl] Katznelson. I'm not crazy! I've done what I've done, that's true. But I can't say that if I hadn't done what I've done, Israel would have been any different [16].

If that's the case, Fallaci probed, "why do they say you're the only one who can hold the country together?" Meir answered:

Nonsense! Now, I'll tell you something that'll convince you. When Eshkol died in 1969, they conducted a poll to find out how much popularity his possible successors had. And you know how many people came out for me? One percent. Maybe one and a half percent...it was by accident that Golda Meir got to lead the country. Eshkol was dead, someone had to take his place, and the party thought I might replace him because I was acceptable to all factions...that's all. In fact. I didn't even want to accept. I had got out of governmental politics, I was tired. You can ask my children and grandchildren. [17]

In short order, Meir went from retirement (leaving her position as Foreign Minister, though not her seat in the Knesset, in 1966) to serving as Secretary General of her party, Mapai, in order to bring the different fragments of the Labor movement into a unified, political alliance. On the call to leave retirement and take up the reins of the party, Meir wrote, "It was the one appeal that I couldn't turn down. Not because I was so sure I would succeed or because I so yearned to be in the middle of a crucial struggle all over again -- and not because I was bored, as many people probably thought -- but for a much simpler and much more important reason: I truly believed that the future of the labor movement was at stake...I couldn't turn at this stage of my life either on my principles or on my colleagues." [18]

This was the constant theme of her political life and one further illustrated by Menahem Meir's review of his mother's secret meetings with King Abdullah of Transjordan in 1947 and 1948. She was selected for the job, above all, in Menahem Meir's words, for "her readiness to undertake whatever task had to be done, no matter how tiring or how dangerous." [19]

After her un-retirement, Meir again left public life for a private existence, stepping down as the Labor Alignment's Secretary General in 1968. Then, the call came once more, this time to become prime minister. Her son recalls the telephone call that he received from his mother, while he and his wife were living in the United States.

"There was just one thing she wanted to discuss and then she told us about the prime ministership. 'What do you think? What shall I say? Should I say yes? Sarah [her daughter] and Zecharia [her son-in-law] think I ought to. What do you think?' " [20] There were several items that worried Golda, including questions about her health. But the most serious concern, in the words of her son, "was whether she really wanted the job or not." As he explains:

Every time she'd managed to wrench free of the tyranny of public office, she'd been called back again. And the prime ministership, of course, was no ordinary assignment...For mother, to say yes meant, as she saw it, no less than taking upon herself personal responsibility for each and every casualty...and, more than that, responsibility for Israel's continued if much challenged existence..."Well, you know," she said, "I never dreamed of becoming prime minister or planned anything remotely resembling this." [21]

As her son puts it, it was as if "she couldn't believe that it was she, Goldie Mabowitz, who had been called upon." [22] But that response was nothing new. When she was asked to be foreign minister in 1956, she, at first, dismissed the idea, saying, "I as foreign minister? What do I know about diplomacy? or protocol?" [23] When, in 1949, Ben-Gurion invited her to be deputy prime minister and coordinator of development, Meir's response was, "If you insist on my being in the government, I have no desire to be deputy prime minister, nor do I want to be coordinator of development, of which I know very little." Instead, she offered her experience in labor relations. [24] So, when she decided to accept that last call. her actions followed a well-established path. In Meir's own words:

I couldn't make up my mind. On the one hand, I realized that unless I agreed, there would inevitably be a tremendous tug-of-war between [Moshe] Dayan and [Yigal] Allon, which was one thing Israel didn't need then. It was enough that we had a war with the Arabs on our hands; we could wait for that to end before we embarked on a war of the Jews. On the other hand, I honestly didn't want the responsibility, the awful stress and strain of being prime minister...I had never planned to be prime minister; I had never planned any position, in fact. I had planned to come to Palestine, to go to [kibbutz] Merhavia, to be active in the labor movement. But the position I would occupy? That never...I became prime minister because that was how it was, in the same way that my milkman became an officer in command of an outpost on Mount Hermon. Neither of us had any particular relish for the job, but we both did it as well as we could. [25]

Again. like Washington who retired from public life, only to be called back into the fray, Meir just couldn't say no when her country called. Of course, her autobiographical musings might be viewed as self-serving. But here, it's useful to remember that when Meir finally agreed to do the book project, after much hesitation, she told publisher Sir George Weidenfeld, "I will not write about my private life. I will not settle political or other scores with anyone. I will not take advantage of the high office I have just left, or of anything I learned there." [26] To a remarkable degree, the finished product remained squarely within those guidelines. Certainly, one might argue, as does Yaron Ezrahi, that Meir's My Life is in the tradition of the how-I- helped-build-the-country approach so prevalent in Israeli autobiography -- and that such autobiographies that "do not address the inner life of the author nor do they provide honest, reflective narratives of the writing, or speaking, self." [27] Yet, whether it follows the therapeutic model or not, My Life strongly reinforces the role of duty, of service, in Meir's response to the call to power.

Yet an emphasis on the servant side of her leadership cannot and should not erase the other facets of her political character. Responding to the call to power is not the same as passivity in exercising it, however power is defined. In fact, Meir's performance, once in office, often followed a course that veered away from many of the standard characteristics associated with servant leadership. [28] While one might act out of a sense of duty, the results produced by such actions are complex and certainly need not imply any weakness of will. Describing Meir, for example, French Prime Minister George Pompidou said she was "une femme formidable" and Nixon called her "an elemental force of nature." [29] Speaking of her in his book 1949: The First Israelis, Tom Segev writes, "She was an impressive, even formidable person, physically rather unattractive, yet with a distinct charm of her own, marked by a unique blend of very Jewish optimism and with a very Israeli kind of grimness." [30]

Beyond optimism and grimness, Meir also displayed other, and crucial dualities. She was a person who could both laugh and cry, be both hard and sentimental, as well as both wise and simplistic. Her demeanor was not that of aloofness and she was famous for making coffee and tea in the kitchen and serving her guests be they fellow dignitaries or not. In this regard, it was Meir's commonplace warmth and humanity, not coolness or distance, that served to define her, her role and her image. It was, in many ways, a compelling package. In Meir's case, Letty Cottin Pogebin notes, "Maternal appearance, self-effacing humor, and supreme confidence were a formidable combination." [31] And when Meir became prime minister, Simcha Dinitz told the press that she has "the best qualities of a woman -- intuition, insight, sensitivity, and compassion -- plus the best qualities of a man -- strength, determination, practicality, purposefulness." [32] Leaving aside any debate over the merits of such descriptive gender categories, it is clear that Meir's political behavior represented a blend of factors, held together by her Socialist/Labor-Zionist vision and her commitment to duty and topped off by a dry wit and straightforward plain-speaking. She was blunt yet prudent, firm yet careful and intransigent (she would say that was her middle name) yet compromising. She was stubborn when it came to negotiations. But then, as Nixon notes, that stubbornness existed "because she cared deeply about what she was negotiating to protect." [33]

The blend that was Golda may have created a global symbol (even in parts of the Arab world where she was referred to as the Old Lady), but it was not without its critics. [34] Leah Rabin (the widow of the assassinated Israeli prime minister who first gained that leadership position in the wake of Meir's resignation) has said that Meir was "not selflessly dedicated" and "didn't advance the pursuit of peace during her administration." [35] From many feminist perspectives, Meir was a Queen Bee, not a worker, whose I-made-it-any woman-can attitude displayed a blind spot toward her own gender and was "ultimately disappointing for her limited vision and for failing to use her power to greater effect." [36] Certainly, gender was woven into Meir's very fabric, whatever her expressions concerning organized or structured feminism.

Seth Thompson has stated that the three themes running throughout Meir's life were her sense of Jewish identity, her commitment to a public/political existence and her gender. [37] Gender was always there, and if Meir's views on that subject seem enigmatic to others, they were anything but that to her.

In terms of a broad critique of Meir, Chaim Herzog (who became Israel's sixth president in 1983) argues, "She believed that she had the common touch and was one of the people. The fact is that as prime minister, she was very much out of touch with ordinary citizens. Doctrinaire and obsessed with the trappings of power, she believed that only she was right about any subject under discussion. Her stubborn blindness to outside influences cost Israel much...." [38] From this view, Meir was not only stubborn, she was also not at all a servant. Instead, she was "the overbearing mother who ruled the roost with her iron hand," governing through personality and kitchen cronies. [39]

Yet, Herzog goes on to note, however, that unlike other Israelis in positions of authority in times of crisis, Meir had no trouble in making decisions. "Although her nearsightedness [involving the Yom Kippur War] had nearly caused our defeat, Herzog writes, "once the war began she showed great strength of character and enormous composure...her inflexibility proved to be of an enormous asset in the war. She used common sense to make military decisions, often opposing the choices made by lifelong military men -- and her choices were usually correct...." [40] This paints an interesting picture in which Meir's perceived strengths (such as the stubbornness born out of a caring commitment to a cause) become weaknesses only to return as strengths in a crisis. Consider Gideon Rafael's assessment of Meir, "Sustained by an unwavering faith in the incontestable justice of the cause, she had little use and patience for the refined counter argument...To hold on doggedly to concepts, even if they had long been overtaken by events, was Golda's perception of leadership...Forgetting was not one of Golda's distinctive qualities [and she] appeared open, while holding back." [41]

Yet, like Herzog, Rafael also admits that Meir's stubborn inflexibility gave her the "strength of resistance" required by an embattled people even as it impaired her ability to adapt to new situations. [42] For Marie Syrkin, Meir's alleged vice in this arena is really her virtue. In Syrkin's words, "Her peculiar virtue lies in a fierce moral assurance always translated into action to which her whole life testifies." [43] And, importantly, that virtue never erased Meir's problem-solving orientation toward leadership -- an orientation that was not without its adaptive dimension, though of the incremental kind.

Ultimately, it is difficult to examine Meir and avoid the cliche that she was, at least in part, a complex and contradictory figure. On that front, we should recall F. Scott Fitzgerald's observation, "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." [44] That ability is critical in understanding this founding father who was a mother. Despite the contradictions and the complexities, there was a clear framework within which Meir functioned -- one connected to the question of duty and the call to (not the search for) power. "I realized," Meir said, "that in a conflict between my duty and my innermost desires, it was my duty that had the prior claim." [45] More than anything else that helps explain why someone such as Fallaci could write, "even if one is not at all in agreement with her, with her politics, her ideology, one cannot help but respect her, admire her, even love her." [46]

Abba Eban, who became foreign minister after Meir left that post, addressed Meir's political legacy in a 1994 lecture at the library that bears her name in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Nobody," Eban said, "has ever called Golda an easy personality. She was the heir to a long Jewish tradition of argumentation. Whenever she saw or heard some kind of dogmatic assertion she would rise up against it in an effort to reveal its superficialities and its weaknesses." [47] Golda, he also noted, "showed her good judgment on most occasions [and] had a great vision of Israel as a redemption of Jewish pride, social pride." [48]

But, perhaps most telling, was Eban's statement that, "I do not believe for a single moment that if Golda heard that I was representing her spirit here, she would have allowed me to devote all my words to Golda Meir. She certainly would not have come here in order to speak about herself." [49]

Meir was not a saint. Instead, she was the global Jewish mother, self-effacing and controlling, nurturing and nagging. [50] She was an Iron Lady, but, in the words of Meir biographer Ralph Martin, "beneath the steel was poetry, music , romance." [51] Meir paid her dues and earned her place in history, not out of a sense of her own self-importance, not out of a search for glory and not out of colossal ambition, but rather through her commitment to an idea and by just doing her duty. In Shakespearean terms, if you will, duty moved her to act in ways that no worldy rewards could have ever drawn from her. [52]

Norman Provizer is a professor of Political Science and director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The President’s Professional Development Fund at Metro State, the American Studies Program at the Louisiana State University in Shreveport and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities provided support for this project.

END NOTES

[1]. The description of the event and the English translation of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel is from the Israel Pocket Library: History From 1880 (Jerusalem: Keter Books, 1973), pp. 118-123. The English translation of her signature on the document is Golda Myerson. Translations lead to spelling differences with Meyerson (her married name) and Mabovitch (her original name) which also appears as Mabowehz and Mabowitz. The Declaration has 37 signatures, though not all of the signers were actually at the ceremony.

[2]. Golda took the more Hebrew name Meir in 1956, when she became foreign minister at the urging of David Ben-Gurion (who was formerly named Green). Meir means "to illuminate" and is also the Hebrew version of Morris (the first name of Meir's husband). While living separate lives in Israel, the couple never divorced. Additionally, Meir was the fourth person to hold the office of prime minister, though she was actually the country's fifth prime minister because Ben-Gurion held the office on two different occasions. Officially, she led Israel's 14th, 15th and 16th governments.

[3]. Richard Nixon, Leaders (New York: Warner Books, 1983), p. 300.

[4]. Antonia Fraser, The Warrior Queens (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), p.311.

[5]. Robert Greenleaf, "Servant Leadership" in J. Thomas Wren (ed.), The Leaders Companion (New York: The Free Press, 1995), p. 22.

[6]. Oriana Fallaci, Interview with History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), p. 119.

[7]. For details on the Agranat Commission investigation into the Yom Kippur War, see Pnina Lahav, Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 223-243. The commission distinguished between political and military responsibility for the failure to to anticipate the attack. It declined to judge political responsibility, though it did examine whether Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan were personally responsible for the situation. The commission concluded that neither minister was negligent.

[8]. Richard Norton Smith, Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), p. 250.

[9]. From Menahem Meir, My Mother Golda Meir (New York: Arbor House, 1983), p.122.

[10]. Quoted in Golda Meir, My Life (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975), p. 214.

[11]. From Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 193.

[12]. Ibid.

[13]. In John Rhodehamel, The Great Experiment: George Washington and the American Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. viii. This is the catalogue of the exhibit organized by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

[14]. Ibid.

[15]. Introduction to Matthew Spalding and Patrick Garrity's A Sacred Union of Citizens: George Washington's Farewell Address and the American Character (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), p. x. Also see, Max Weber's essay "The Sociology of Charismatic Authority," in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 245-252.

[16]. Fallaci, Interview, pp. 117-118.

[17]. Ibid.

[18]. G. Meir, My Life, pp. 351-352

[19]. M. Meir, My Mother, p. 108

[20]. Ibid, p. 184.

[21]. Ibid, pp. 184-185. The question of responsibility, of course, haunted Meir after the Yom Kippur War and she never forgave herself for not acting on her own instincts and instead listening to the military advice which claimed war was not imminent. See, for example, Avraham Tamir, A Soldier in Search of Peace (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 194.

[22]. Ibid, p. 185.

[23]. Ibid, p. 156.

[24]. Ibid, p. 135.

[25]. G. Meir, My Life, pp. 378-379.

[26]. M. Meir, My Mother, p. 231.

[27]. Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1997), p. 95. In terms of Meir's inner life, her son, Menahem, cites an interesting excerpt from a letter to him from his mother sent from Abadan, Iran in 1945. Commenting on a prolonged silence, she said, "Suffice it to say that it has its origins in the same deep, dark well as other aspects of my troubled existence, and is only one other facet of a life utterly unhinged and frustrated, which has been the ban of my lot for oh so many ages...." M. Meir, My Mother, p. 19. In his biography of Golda Meir, Ralph Martin notes, "She was also no saint. Her critics were many and there were black holes in her life." Ralph Martin, Golda Meir: The Romantic Years (London: Piatkus, 1984), p. x.

[28]. See, for example, Robert Greenleaf's The Power of Servant Leadership (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998), edited by Larry Spears. In his Introduction, Spears lists 10 characteristics of servant leadership, many of which are not at all reflective of Meir.

[29]. Both quotes are from Nixon, Leaders, p. 298

[30]. Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), p. 132.

[31]. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me (New York: Crown, 1991), p. 175.

[32]. Quoted in Olga Opfell, Women Prime Ministers and Presidents (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 1993), p. 33.

[33]. Nixon, Leaders, p. 299. Yet, it is worth noting, as does Yossi Beilan, that while Meir was known for her firm stand relative to the Arab world and Palestinians, she, in principle, "supported a solution based on territorial compromise." Israel: A Concise Political History (New York: St. Martin's, 1993), p. 161.

[34]. Laura Liswood, in Women World Leaders (San Francisco: Harper-Collins, 1995), provides interviews with 15 women leaders from around the world. She notes, "Golda Meir was in fact the sole specific woman named by these prime ministers and presidents," p. 99.

[35]. Leah Rabin, Rabin (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1997), pp. 139 and 246.

[36]. Pogrebin, Deborah, p. 153. For these reasons, in Pogrebin's eyes, Meir is "not a worthy role model."

[37]. Seth Thompson, "Golda Meir" in Michael Genovese (ed.). Women as National Leaders (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), p. 135.

[38]. Chaim Herzog, Living History (New York: Pantheon, 1996), p. 173. His statement about Meir's obsession with "the trappings of power" is questionable, at best, especially given the numerous descriptions found elsewhere of her Spartan office and modest home.

[39]. Quoted in Fraser, The Warrior Queens, p.312.

[40]. Herzog, Living, pp. 173 and 188.

[41]. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace (Briar Cliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day, 1981), pp. 380, 381, 385 and 66.

[42]. Ibid, p. 381.

[43]. Marie Syrkin, Golda Meir: Israel's Leader (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969), p. 11. Stubbornness was a Meir characteristic going back to her youth.

[44]. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up (New York: New Directions, 1993), edited by Edmund Wilson, p. 69. This essay first appeared in 1936.

[45]. Pogrebin, Deborah, p. 151.

[46]. Fallaci, Interview, p. 88.

[47]. Abba Eban, The Political Legacy of Golda Meir, presented in 1994 as the 25th Annual Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture (Milwaukee: Golda Meir Library, 1995), p. 8.

[48]. Ibid, p. 9.

[49]. Ibid, p. 10.

[50]. Leonard Garment, in Crazy Rhythm (New York: Times Books, 1997), p. 188, writes that Meir "reminded American Jews of their nuturing, nagging mothers." Pogrebin, Deborah, p. 179, cites Ze'ev Chafets' description of Meir as "the quintessential Zionist earth mother."

[51]. Martin, Golda Meir, p. x.

[52]. In Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus betrays his close friend Valentine to the Duke of Milan, telling the Duke of Valentine's plan to steal away his daughter. "My duty," Proteus says, "pricks me on to utter that [w]hich else no worldly good should draw from me." Howard Staunton (ed.), The Globe Shakespeare: The Complete Works (New York: Gramercy, 1979), p. 20.

Golda Meir: An Outline of a Unique Life

A Chronological Survey of Gola Meir's Life and Legacy

By Norman Provizer, Director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and Claire Wright, Research Assistant

In early 1969, 70-year-old Golda Meir became the third woman in the 20th Century to emerge as a leader of a nation. And, unlike the women who proceeded her, the Russian-born/American-bred Meir gained her position as Israel’s Prime Minister without the benefit of family ties to a famous father or an assassinated husband. Beyond that, Meir was also twice an immigrant to new lands. A fact that continually reminds us that leadership often emerges from the most unlikely places. Her extraordinary life was not without pain or controversy. But it was extraordinary. The following represents a comprehensive outline of that life, arranged in chronological fashion.

1898: Meir is born Goldie Mabovitch on May 3, 1898 in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of Russia). She is one of eight children born to Moshe and Blume Mabovitch (or Mabowitz), five of whom (four boys and a girl) died in infancy. She is the middle child of the three surviving girls. Sheyna (or Shana) is the eldest and Zipke (later known as Clara) is the youngest. Her father is a carpenter/cabinet-maker and Golda is named for her maternal great-grandmother Golde who was known for her strong will and stubbornness. Early in life she witnesses the endemic anti-Jewish violence in Czarist Russia (the pogroms). The image of that anti-Semitism would remain with her and greatly influence the course of her life.

1903: Golda and the family move to Pinsk (in what is now Belarus), her mother’s original home. That year, a severe pogrom leads many Jewish communities in Russia to declare a fast in protest. Though not quite five, Golda insists on participating in the fast despite her family’s objections based on her age. Moshe Mabovitch departs for the United States and settles in Milwaukee. The plan is for him to send for his family once he is established in America.

1906: She leaves Russia, with her mother and sisters, to join her father in America. They land in Quebec, Canada and then travel by train to Milwaukee. Because her father had helped a friend reach America by pretending that the friend’s wife and daughters were his, the rest of the Mabovitch family now has to use false names to depart.

1908: While in the fourth grade, Golda and her close friend Regina Hamburger form the American Young Sisters Society to raise money to buy textbooks for students who could not afford them. Their activities include a fundraising effort in a large, rented hall at which Golda speaks.

1912: She begins North Division High School after graduating from the Fourth Street School (now the Golda Meir School) as class valedictorian (despite her frequent tardiness due to working in her mother’s store). Though Golda is excited over high school and the idea of becoming a teacher, her parents are less than thrilled over these developments. After all, teachers in Wisconsin, at the time, could not be married. So Golda plans to runaway from home (and her parents’ talk of her getting married) to stay with her sister Sheyna, who is in Denver for her tuberculosis.

1913: After making her plans, 14-year-old Golda steals out of her house and takes a train to Denver in February. She moves in with her sister, her sister’s husband (Shamai Korngold) and their child (Judith) who live in a small duplex located in West Denver and enrolls at North High School on February 17. She listens to the heated debates that take place among visitors to the Korngold kitchen on a variety of topics ranging from Yiddish literature, Zionism, anarchism and socialism to women’s suffrage, trade unionism and dialectical materialism. In her autobiography Golda writes, “to the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form, and ideas were discarded or accepted by me while I was growing up, those talk-filled nights in Denver played a considerable role.” In a different context, she put it this way, “Denver was a turning point because my real education began. In Denver, life really opened up for me.” As part of her life opening up in Denver, Golda meets and dates Morris Myerson (or Meyerson) who has passion for the arts, music and Golda.

1914: Golda ends her stay at North High School on June 5. Disagreements with her sister lead her to move out on her own and to work. She then reconciles with her parents and plans her return to Milwaukee, though Morris talks of marriage.

1915: Golda is back at North Division High School in Milwaukee and graduates the next year.

1916: After finishing North Division High School, Golda attends Wisconsin State Normal School in Milwaukee with the idea of pursuing a teaching career. While she is vice-president of her class, Goldie Mabowehz (as she is then known) attends the teacher-training institution just for one year. She teaches at a Yiddish school in Milwaukee, organizes protest marches and joins the Poalei Zion (Labor Zionists) organization.

1917: On July 9, Golda’s father Moshe becomes an American citizen (the name on the documents is Morris Mabowehz). Under the law in effect, children, who were under 21, received derivative citizenship or citizenship by descent. On December 24, Golda marries Morris Myerson in her parents’ home. Right after the marriage she travels extensively for Poalei Zion, including stays in Chicago and a trip to Canada. Interestingly, given the derivative citizenship idea, she points out that when trying to go to Canada there was a problem because she had no passport. "Morris wasn’t an American citizen yet,” she writes in her autobiography, “and married women couldn’t take out their own citizenship then. My father’s passport would have helped, but he was still angry with me for going and refused to send it to me.” Details on this matter remain in question.

1918: Golda attends the first convention of the American Jewish Congress. She travels to the Philadelphia meeting as a delegate from Milwaukee. She is the youngest of the delegates there and considers the meeting the start of her political career.

1921: Though Morris is not enthusiastic about leaving America for Palestine, Golda is adamant on this point. After four years of saving for the venture, the Myersons, along with Golda’s sister Sheyna (and her daughter), her old friend Regina and others depart New York on the SS Pocahontas for Naples and then on, by ship and train, to Tel Aviv. It is a difficult journey. She is once again an immigrant. And, after fighting her initial rejection (because she was married and an American), Golda is accepted as a member of Kibbutz Merhavia. She and Morris move to the kibbutz to fulfill Golda’s dream. Though Golda expresses the view that she would be happy to remain on the kibbutz for the rest of her life, Morris does not share this sentiment. They leave after three years. But during her stay, Golda becomes an active member in kibbutz affairs beyond Merhavia.

1924: The Myerson’s first child, Menahem, is born in Tel Aviv. The family moves to Jerusalem.

1925: Golda spends a brief period back at Merhavia with her son.

1926: Golda’s parents move from the U.S. to Israel and her daughter Sara (or Sarah) is born in Jerusalem.

1928: She becomes Secretary of the Women’s Labor Council at the suggestion of David Remez. It is her first public position. Her move back to Tel Aviv, with the children, marks her separation from Morris who remains in Jerusalem and comes to Tel Aviv on weekends. Though they are never divorced and continue to have close ties, they are very different people now following very different paths. Remez continues to be one of the men closely connected to Golda. She never discusses such relationships publicly. But she does discuss her guilt over the time spent away from her children as she emerges as an increasingly public figure, frequently traveling abroad.

1930: Golda is one of the founders of Mapai (the Labor Party of the Land of Israel).

1932: She returns to the United States for an extended period with her children in order to get expert medical treatment for Sarah’s kidney illness and travels extensively for the Pioneer Women’s Organization of America speaking and fund raising.

1934: After returning to Palestine, she is elected to the Executive Committee of Histadrut (the General Federation of Jewish Labor).

1938: Golda is named the “Jewish observer from Palestine” to the International Conference on Refugees in Evian-les-Bains, France. She is disappointed with the conference and tells the press at the end, “There is only one thing I hope to see before I die and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.” Despite raising persecution in Europe, the British, the following year, essentially close Palestine to Jewish immigration.

1940: Though Golda and Morris remain married, the formal break in their marriage occurs. She becomes head of Histadrut’s Political Department and actively involves herself in the struggle against restrictive British policy respecting Jewish immigration to Palestine.

1943: The testimony she gives as a witness at the Sirkin-Richlin arms trial conducted by the British adds to her growing reputation.

1944: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization documents state that her father Moshe (Morris) passes away, though Golda’s autobiography gives the year of his death as 1946.

1946: Golda is appointed acting head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department (when male leaders of the Jewish community are rounded up). She is then named head of that department. The Jewish Agency was the de facto “government” of the Jewish community in Palestine. At this time, refugees headed to Palestine are detained aboard two ships in Italy. They begin a hunger strike. Golda suggests that leaders of the community in Palestine do the same. Though she has recently been in the hospital from a gall-bladder attack, Golda insist on being one of those conducting the public fast. Throughout her career, she has a number of serious medical conditions that she deals with quietly while carrying on with her duties.

1947: She travels to Cyprus with the unenviable task of convincing detained refugees to give first priority to families with children to fill the small quota of Jewish immigrants allowed into Palestine. Golda largely succeeds in this. The United Nations votes to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state and Golda has her first secret meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan.

1948: Golda, again, meets secretly with King Abdullah. She travels to the early May meeting in Amman, Jordan through hostile territory in Arab dress. When Abdullah suggests that there is no hurry to proclaim the state of Israel, she answers, “We have been waiting for 2,000 years. Is that hurrying?” Conflict between Arabs and Jews continues and, on May 14, Israel’s independence is declared. The ceremony takes place in the Tel Aviv Art Museum and Golda Myerson is one of those signing the document. She travels again to America to raise funds. Golda is enormously successful generating pledges of some $50 million. Her talk in Chicago is often referred to as “the speech that made possible a Jewish state.” David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first leader, would comment that when the history of Israel is written it will say, “there was a Jewish woman who got the money to make the state possible.” While in New York, Golda’s taxi is in an accident and she emerges with a badly fractured leg. Golda also arrives in Moscow as Israel’s first minister to the Soviet Union. While she receives much acclaim, she is not happy about leaving Israel at this time. But she writes, “One’s duty was one duty – and it had nothing to do with justice.” This idea of duty is a constant theme throughout her life. When she gets a passport from now independent Israel, according to several sources, she turns back her American passport. She, however, never turns her back on her positive experience with American democracy and freedom.

1949: Golda is elected to the first Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) from the Mapai party which organizes the government. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion invites her to be Deputy Prime Minister. She declines and is named Minister of Labor. Despite her qualifications, there are members of the religious block who are not happy with the appointment of a woman to the position. As Labor Minister, she creates large infrastructure projects (including housing) to deal with the absorption of the vast number of new immigrants to Israel. She is also involved in initiating social legislation such as the National Insurance Act.

1951: Her husband Morris dies of a heart attack in Golda’s Tel Aviv apartment while she is out of the country. She flies back for the funeral. Her mother Blume (or Bluma) also passes away.

1955: She is asked by Ben-Gurion to run for mayor of Tel Aviv. Though reluctant, she takes on the task. She does not receive a majority vote from the city council. Her selection depended on the votes of two men from the religious block and one of them simply refused to support a woman. Golda (who is not particularly religious) continues as Minister of Labor until 1956. Also, Pinchas Lavon resigns as Israel’s Defence Minister. The entire Lavon Affair, which starts in 1954 and resurfaces in 1960, has a major impact on Israeli politics and adds to the existing strains between Golda and her mentor Ben-Gurion. Prior to this, Golda looked at Ben-Gurion as a hero. After this and Ben-Gurion’s 1965 split from the Labor party, she has anger over the wounds he causes though still admiring his great achievements.

1956: In line with the idea that Israeli leaders should Hebraicize their names, Golda becomes Golda Meir (which means to illuminate or to burn brightly) rather than Golda Myerson. Since she also spelled her name Meirson, she drops the last part of the name to produce Meir. On her grave, her name in English is given as Golda Meir (Meirson). While the pronunciation of her new name is May-ear many American refer to her as My-ear. She is named to be Israel’s Foreign Minister. She occupies that position during the 1956 Suez crisis (taking charge of the Israeli delegation at the United Nations during debates over Suez) and serves until 1966. Prior to the outbreak of the Suez conflict, she secretly flies to France and is involved in planning the operation. During her tenure as Foreign Minister, Golda greatly expands Israel’s contact with Third World countries especially the sub-Saharan African states with which she believes Jews shared “the memory of centuries of suffering.” Throughout her life, she is particularly proud of her efforts in building these relationships and providing highly effective assistance programs.

1960: When Argentina complains to the Security Council of the United Nations that Israel violated its sovereignty when it captured Adolph Eichmann on its territory and brought him to Israel for trial, Golda addresses the Council with a powerful speech on the Holocaust. The Council decides that an expression of regret by Israel is sufficient and endorses the idea of bringing the wanted Nazi to trial.

1963: She is diagnosed with cancer (lymphoma).

1965: Expressing the need “to recharge” her emotional batteries and facing on-going health problems, Golda says she is ready to retire and leave the government. She declines Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s offer to become Deputy Prime Minister.

1966: Though retaining her seat in the Knesset, Golda leaves her position as Foreign Minister. Her retirement, however, is short lived. She becomes the Secretary-General of her party, Mapai, in order to help bring the various fragments of the Labor movement together in a unified Labor party alliance/alignment. “It was the one appeal,” she writes, “that I couldn’t turn down.”

1967: The Six-Day War takes place in June. Golda is not in the government at the time and the war shatters the relationships she had developed with African and other Third World nations.

1968: She leaves her position as party Secretary-General and the military exchanges with Egypt across the Suez, called the War of Attrition, begin.

1969: Early in the year, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol dies. There is serious disagreement over his successor. Given the struggle between Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan for the position, Golda is seen as the only person who can hold things together. Faced with the view that “Golda must come back,” she accepts the nomination for the post by the central committee of her party on March 7 and becomes Prime Minister on March 17, seven weeks before her 71st birthday. She is the fourth person to hold the position and she remains in office for just over five years. Her early years are marked by enormously high approval ratings.

1970: A cease-fire takes place in the War of Attrition with Egypt. Golda also begins a series of meeting with King Hussein of Jordan. A little later, there is talk as well of a meeting with President Sadat of Egypt, but nothing materializes. A terrorist attack on a school bus near Avivim leads to the death of nine children and three adults.

1971: She becomes only the second woman from outside the U.S. to be at the top of the list of the most admired woman in America compiled by the Gallup poll. She repeats this achievement in 1973 and 1974.

1972: Golda is elected Deputy Chairman of the worldwide Socialist International; and, as Prime Minister, she faces the September massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. After considering alternative responses, she orders the creation of assassination teams to hunt down the perpetrators who belong to the Black September movement. The effort creates its own controversies. Before the Munich attack, terrorists also kill 27 people at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv. Her older sister Sheyna, who was such an influence on Golda, dies.

1973: She announces that she will retire in October following the elections. She says in an interview, “Once they’re over, goodbye.” But on October 6, the Yom Kippur War begins. Change is put aside. The war has an enormous impact on Golda. On the one hand, she could never quite forgive herself for not listening to her heart (her intuition) concerning a possible attack She was, however, informed by military and intelligence sources that no attack was imminent. Though hesitant, she listens to that advice. Once it was clear that an attack would take place almost immediately, she supports significant mobilization while, at the same time, resisting the idea of attacking first. During the conflict, Golda also used great skill in generating desperately needed arms shipments from the U.S. Though her government appears to have discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons during the worst moments of the war, Golda, herself, was not one to panic, as were some others around her. Her determination, composure, strength and common sense proved valuable in the end. The Arab oil embargo follows the conflict. After the war, the Agranat Commission (set up to investigate Israel’s lack of preparedness) praised her conduct during the fight. One Commission member was impressed because “she carried the full burden. There was no attempt to shove responsibility onto someone else. She answered every one of our questions in dignity…It was Golda at her toughest, not stooping.” But the damage had been done. Earlier in the year, before the war, Golda was flying to Italy when Israeli agents discovered and stopped (virtually at the last minute) an effort to bring down her plane with surface-to-air missiles. Additionally, her cancer spreads and Golda has an intensive radiation-treatment schedule that she keeps secret while she carries on her duties. And she is named the most admired woman in England. At the end of the year, the delayed elections take place.

1974: The controversy over the war continues; and, while Golda is returned to office, she struggles to form a government and is ready to move back to private life. On April 10, she tells party leaders she has had enough. She stays on, heading a caretaker government, until leaving office on June 4. She also ends her 25-year stay in the Knesset. Before Golda leaves office, a terrorist attack on a school in Ma’alot kills 21 children, while another attack at Kiryat Shmona kills 19 people including nine children.

1975: Golda, now a private citizen, publishes her autobiography My Life. During negotiations with British publisher George Weidenfeld, she says, “I will not write about my private life. I will not settle political or other scores with anyone. I will not take advantage of the high office have just left, or of anything I learned there.” While the book remained well within those guidelines, it still became an international best seller. Rinna Samuels works with her on writing the book. And, according to publisher Weidenfeld, during the process of producing the book Golda would say, “I need this book like a hole in my head. I hate indiscretion. I hate memoirs.”

1977: The play Golda by William Gibson opens on Broadway at the Morosco Theater with Ann Bancroft playing Golda Meir. Golda attends the play and is not overly happy with the results. While in America, she is called back to be in Jerusalem for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat historic visit. Later, Sadat would say he preferred to deal with Golda. In his words, “The Old Lady. She has guts, really.”

1978: She is hospitalized in Jerusalem’s Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center’s Hematology Ward and falls into a coma on December 7. On December 8, Golda Meir dies at 4:30 p.m. On December 12, she is buried at Mount Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem. There are numerous tributes to her from across the globe. Yet, as much as anything said, Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci’s words, written after a 1972 interview with Golda, ring true. While not at all pro-Israel in her sentiments, the journalist writes “even if one is not at all in agreement with her, with her politics, her ideology, one cannot help but respect her, admire her, even love her.” A decade earlier, in the Foreword to a book of Golda’s papers, Eleanor Roosevelt also described Meir as “a woman one cannot help but deeply respect and deeply love.” Such was the nature of her unique life.

1981: Golda’s younger sister Clara (Stern) dies.

1982: Ingrid Bergman plays Golda in a two-part, four-hour television movie by Paramount Pictures titled A Woman Called Golda. Leonard Nimoy plays her husband Morris and Judy Davis plays Golda as a young woman.

2001: Renee Taylor, playing the role of Golda, begins a one-woman touring show called An Evening with Golda Meir.

2002: William Gibson’s new play Golda’s Balcony is performed in Massachusetts. Unlike his earlier work, this has only one person on stage. Annette Miller plays Golda. 2003: Golda’s Balcony opens in New York with Tovah Feldshuh as Golda Meir. Following a highly acclaimed run off-Broadway, the play moves to the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway.

For additional discussions of Golda Meir, you can also see other articles on the Center’s web site (www.goldameircenter.org) by Norman Provizer. The first is “In the Shadow of Washington: Golda Meir, Duty and the Call to Power” (which also appears in Kevin Cope, editor, George Washington In and As Culture, New York: AMS Press, 2001). The second is “The Return of Golda Meir” (published as “Golda Meir 25 Years Later: Unique on Stage, Unique in Life” in the May 16, 2003 issue of the Intermountain Jewish News). The Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership will continue to provide additional articles and information about Meir’s leadership, including debates concerning her policies on Arab-Israeli relations and the Palestinians, as well as domestic Israeli affairs and gender issues.

Golda often spoke, after all, with deep conviction about the need for peace, while pursuing hard-line policies based on commonly held perceptions of security. She could be intransigent and compromising, hard-nosed and prudent. And, while clearly shaped by ideas, she could tell a friend in 1948, “The thing that mattered most in my life was that if a thing has to be done, you don’t waste time with theories and debates. You just do it.” Those words were spoken decades before Nike commercials were born.

The Return of Golda Meir

Norman Provizer

2003 marks the 25th anniversary of Golda Meir’s death and her return to the New York stage. Back in 1977, it was Ann Bancroft who portrayed Israel’s fourth Prime Minister in William Gibson’s Broadway play Golda. Now, it is actress Tovah Feldshuh’s turn on stage as Meir in Gibson’s newest venture into the life of the Russian-born/American-bred leader who held power from early 1969 until mid-1974.

When Golda’s Balcony was unveiled in Lenox, Massachusetts in the summer of 2002, the playwright noted that the new play was quite different from its predecessor. Instead of a large cast and an expensive production, Golda’s Balcony is a one-woman show.  More importantly, Gibson has said that he was never particularly happy with his first take on Golda. “I always felt that there was something about the theme of that play which I didn’t see clearly. I knew I had left a lot of things unsaid that were important, but I didn’t know what they were.”  He, of course, was not alone in that critical judgment. Meir’s son, Menahem, described the play as a disappointment to the family. “Mother,” he would write, “sat through the first night pale but composed.”    

 Meir ended her visit to America for the opening of Golda when she, now just a private citizen, was invited home for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem. The following year, the Old Lady (to borrow the term often used to describe her by Arab leaders such as Sadat) died at the age of 80.

Four years after her death in 1978, Paramount released the expansive television movie A Woman Called Golda starring Ingrid Bergman. Then, another 20 years passed before Golda’s Balcony came to life in Massachusetts with Annette Miller providing a gritty portrayal of Meir. For Gibson, the key to the new journey through Golda’s life was something he did not know a quarter of a century ago. Israel not only possessed a nuclear capability but there were discussions by Meir’s government concerning the possible use of that capability during darkest days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. With Golda on the balcony contemplating the “Sampson Option” (and allaying her own fears, while avoiding the despair displayed by some around her), the intersection of ideals and power came into clear focus. 

Three decades ago, this founding mother of the modern Jewish state stood as the most admired women in America. After all, while other women preceded her to national power in the 20th century, none before her achieved that position without family ties, without famous fathers or martyred husbands. But that was then and now is now. The passage of time and the memory of the Yom Kippur struggle have cast their own shadows on Meir. So, does she still touch us today?

When she became Israel’s Foreign Minister in 1956, Golda (whose original name was Mabovitz and whose married name was Myerson) adopted the name Meir.  – the illuminator. And, yes, she does continue to shed light on a number of important themes that have lost none of their resonance in the contemporary world. 

It was Italian journalist and critic of Israel Oriana Fallaci who commented on Meir that “even if one is not at all in agreement with her, with her politics, her ideology, one cannot help but respect her, admire her, even love her.” That respect, admiration, love did not come because Meir had an easy or accommodating personality. Reality, in fact, offers much evidence to the contrary. As Golda herself noted, “I know myself too well to like myself…I know all too well that I am not what I would like to be.”  What she did possess, however, was a sense of leadership based on service in pursuit of an ideal and duty. In Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus betrays his close friend Valentine to the Duke of Milan. “My duty,” Proteus tells us, “pricks me to utter that [w]hich else no worldly good should draw from me.”  That, too, was Golda, moved to action, public responsibility and sacrifice by her commitment to a cause and her sense of duty. “Many leaders,” Richard Nixon noted, “drive to the top by the force of personal ambition. They seek power because they want power. Not Golda Meir. All her life she simply set out to do a job, whatever that might be, and poured into it every ounce of energy and dedication she could summon.”         

In short, Meir was indeed a formidable and forceful woman. But her strength was built on the core of duty, not self. And, as Lao-tzu told us well over 2,500-years ago, “Enlightened leadership is service, not selfishness.” Little wonder, then, that Golda could say, “I have no ambition to be somebody.”

Meir could laugh and cry, be hard and sentimental, as well as wise and simplistic. Certainly, you could say that she was blunt, firm and even intransigent. Yet she was also prudent, careful and, yes, even compromising. Again, in her words, “When one does the job I do, one always stoops to compromises and never lets oneself be faithful to one’s own ideas.” Still, needed compromise never clouded her fundamental faith and vision.       Though critical of Meir, Chaim Herzog, who became Israel’s sixth President in 1983, claims that unlike other Israelis in power in times of crisis, Golda had no trouble in making decisions. Though she erred at the start of the Yom Kippur War, in Herzog’s view, “once the war began she showed great strength of character and enormous composure…her inflexibility proved to be an enormous asset in the war. She used common sense to make military decisions, often opposing the choices made by lifelong military men – and her choices were usually correct.”

Combine that image with her dry wit, honesty, plain talk and refusal to place blame on others and you have a force whose voice speaks to us still. A force superbly captured by Feldshuh’s incandescent performance as the woman who could summarize her life by saying “I did what I thought was right. And that’s that.”

Norman Provizer is director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership and a professor of Political Science at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Meir, who was born in 1898 and died in 1978, lived in Denver for an important, two-year period in her life starting in February 1913. A version of this article appeared as “Golda Meir after 25 Years: Unique in Life, Unique on Stage,” Intermountain Jewish News, May 16, 2003, p.4. 

Golda’s Balcony by William Gibson opens at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway on October 4, 2003, following its successful run at the Manhattan Ensemble Theater. Tovah Feldshuh stars as Golda Meir in the one-woman play directed by Scott Schwartz. To date, the play and Feldshuh have received the Drama League’s nomination for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle’s nomination for Best Solo Performance, the Drama Desk Award for Best Solo Performance and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actress.