Meir, Golda

(formerly Meyerson)

(1898-1978)

   She was born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev, Russia, on 3 May 1898. In 1903, her family moved to Pinsk and, three years later, settled in Milwaukee. She graduated from high school in Milwaukee and attended the Milwaukee Normal School for Teachers. At age 17, she joined Poalei Zion. She married Morris Meyerson in December 1917, and in 1921, they moved to Palestine. They settled in Kibbutz Merhaviah but later moved to Tel Aviv and then to Jerusalem. In 1928, she became secretary of the Women's Labor Council of the Histadrut in Tel Aviv. When Mapai was formed in 1930 by the merger of Ahdut Haavoda and Hapoel Hatzair, she quickly became a major figure in the new political party.

   In 1934, Meyerson was invited to join the executive committee of the Histadrut and became head of its political department. In 1946, when the British mandatory authorities arrested virtually all the members of the Jewish Agency executive and the Vaad Leumi that they could find in Palestine, she became acting head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, replacing Moshe Sharett (formerly Shertok). In the months immediately preceding Israel's Declaration of Independence, she met secretly with King Abdullah of Transjordan to dissuade him from joining the Arab League in attacking Jewish Palestine, but her efforts failed.

   In early June 1948, Meyerson was appointed Israel's first minister to Moscow but returned to Israel in April 1949. She was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 on the Mapai ticket and became minister of labor, a post she held until 1956, when she became foreign minister for a decade under Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol. As minister of labor, her principal function was the absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants (see ALIYA) who arrived in Israel in the first years after independence. She initiated large-scale housing and road-building programs and strongly supported unlimited immigration, and she helped to provide employment and medical care for the immigrants.

   When she succeeded Sharett as foreign minister in 1956, she He-braicized her name and became known as Golda Meir. As foreign minister, she concentrated on Israel's aid to African and other developing nations as a means of strengthening Israel's international position. She resigned as foreign minister in January 1966 and was succeeded by Abba Eban. Because of her enormous popularity in Mapai, she was prevailed upon to accept appointment as general secretary of the party, and, in that position, was Prime Minister Eshkol's closest advisor. In January 1968, she was instrumental in facilitating the union of Mapai, Rafi, and Ahdut Haavoda as the Israel Labor Party. After serving for two years as secretary general, she retired from public life.

   Following Eshkol's sudden death in February 1969, party leaders prevailed upon Meir to become Israel's fourth prime minister in March 1969. She retained the Government of National Unity that Eshkol had constructed at the time of the Six-Day War (1967). In the Knesset election at the end of October 1969, the Labor Party won 56 seats, and Meir once again became prime minister. She led Israel through the trauma of the Yom Kippur War (1973) and its aftermath. Following the 1973 election, which was postponed until 31 December, she had great difficulty in forming a government with Moshe Dayan continuing in his role as minister of defense. In April 1974, she resigned. She died on 8 December 1978.