Golda Meir: The Life and Legacy of the Only Woman to Serve as Israel’s Prime Minister

Summary

Israel’s Day of Independence, Yom Ha’atzmaut, is celebrated on the fifth day of the Hebrew calendar in the month of Iyar. It is immediately preceded by Yom HaZikaron, the Memorial Day for the fallen Israeli soldiers who gave their lives for Israel’s establishment. Emphasis switches from the memorial celebration to the celebration of independence a few minutes after sundown.

The day on which the state of Israel was signed into existence was May 14, 1948. Many important figures in Israeli history played a part in the establishment of the new state, and among the most iconic is the nation’s first female premier, Golda Meir. Known as the “uncrowned queen of Israel” and “Mother Courage,” Meir was an activist for many years, lobbying for a Jewish state in the Mandate of Palestine. She served in numerous capacities before her appointment as Prime Minister and remains one of the most revered Israeli leaders from the pre-state years through the long-sought dream of a Jewish nation.

One of eight children from a poverty-stricken family, she was to become an immigrant to a new land twice in her life. Meir and her parents fled from Kyiv during Russia's antisemitic pogroms in 1905, about a decade after the Dreyfus Affair in France. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before rising the ranks back in the Middle East. When it came to Israel and her role in its early years, she noted, "We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go."

As in the days of the Biblical Hebrews’ migration out of Egypt under Pharaoh, finding a Jewish homeland meant the adjustment of national boundaries and the displacement of certain neighboring cultures. In the modern age, this has led to several major military conflicts and the need for an ongoing state of readiness within the Israeli military. Meir found herself at the helm of the Yom Kippur War, a time in which Israel was at its most vulnerable.