Golda Meir (, , born Golda Mabovitz, May 3 1898 - December 8 1978), known as Golda Meyerson from 1917-1956, was one of the founders of the State of Israel.

Meir served as the Minister of Labour, Foreign Minister, and then as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17 1969 to June 3 1974. As the BBC put it, Golda Meir was the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics years before the epithet was coined for Margaret Thatcher. David Ben-Gurion, the nation's first Prime Minister, once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet." She was Israel's first (and, to date, only) female Prime Minister, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world.

Meir was born as Golda Mabovitz () in Kiev in the Russian Empire (today Ukraine), to Blume Naidtich and Moshe Mabovitz, a lumberman. Golda wrote in her autobiography that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumors of an imminent pogrom. Life was difficult in the Pale of Settlement; she and her two sisters (Sheyna and Tzipke) were often hungry and cold. Her other five siblings died in childhood. Golda especially looked up to Sheyna. Her father left for the United States in 1903; the rest of the family stayed in Pinsk. Golda's older sister Sheyna was engaged in Zionist-Revolutionary activity, which endangered her. The family followed Moshe to the United States in 1906. She also went to college and got a teaching degree.

The family settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, Golda's father worked as a carpenter, and her mother ran a grocery store. When Golda was only eight years old, she had to oversee the store for a short time each morning while her mother bought supplies at the market.

Golda Meir attended the Fourth Street School (now Golda Meir School) across from the Schlitz Brewing Complex from 1906 to 1912. It was here that Golda undertook her first public works project, by organizing a fundraiser to pay for her classmates' textbooks. After forming the American Young Sisters Society, she rented a hall and scheduled a public meeting for the event. Despite not having known English upon entry, Golda graduated as valedictorian of her class.

When Golda was 14, she began attending North Division High School and took part-time jobs to pay expenses. Her mother suggested that she give up school for work and to marry. Golda rebelled and ran away to Denver, Colorado, where her older sister, Sheyna, was living. She stayed for about a year in a duplex at 1606 Julian Street. Golda attended North High School there and met Morris Meyerson, a sign painter, whom she would later marry.

In 1913, Golda returned to Milwaukee and re-enrolled at North Division, graduating in 1915. While there, she was an active member of the Zionist youth movement, Habonim (now Habonim Dror). She spoke at public meetings and often advocated for Socialist Zionism in her speeches. Often she hosted visitors from Palestine.

Upon her graduation from the Milwaukee State Normal School (a predecessor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), she taught in public schools. She formally joined the Labour Zionist Organization in 1915.

Golda and Morris married in 1917 and began planning to make aliyah (emigration to the Land of Israel, then a part of the Ottoman Empire). The couple, together with Golda's elder sister Sheyna, emigrated to Palestine in 1921.

In 1921, Golda and her husband, Morris Myerson, emigrated to Palestine to help found a Jewish state. Golda and Morris wanted to join a kibbutz. She applied to join Kibbutz Merhavia and was turned down at first, but eventually was accepted into the community. Her duties there included picking almonds, planting trees, caring for chickens, and running the kitchen. She also began to emerge as a leader. Her kibbutz chose her to represent them at Histadrut, the General Federation of Labour. By 1924, her husband had grown tired of the kibbutz life and the couple left.

They lived briefly in Tel Aviv before settling in Jerusalem. There they had two children, a son Menachem (born 1924) and a daughter Sarah (born 1926). In 1928, Golda was elected secretary of the Women's Labour Council of Histadrut. This required her to move to Tel Aviv; the children went with her though Morris stayed in Jerusalem. Morris and Golda grew apart but never divorced. Morris died in 1951.

She grew increasingly influential in Histadrut, which evolved into a shadow government for the yet-to-be-born nation of Israel. In 1946, the British cracked down on the Zionist movement in Palestine, arresting many of its leaders, though Golda was never arrested. She gradually took charge of the organization. She negotiated with the British while keeping in contact with the growing guerrilla movement.

Golda Meir was one of twenty-four people (and one of only two women) who signed the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14 1948. She later recalled, "After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a schoolgirl and I read about those who signed the Declaration of Independence, I couldn't imagine these were real people doing something real. And there I was sitting down and signing a declaration of establishment."

Israel was attacked the next day by joint forces from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq in the Israeli War of Independence, otherwise known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Meir was issued Israel's first passport and went to the United States to raise money for the fledgling nation.

Meir was assigned to be the first ambassador to the Soviet Union when she returned from the U.S. She served there briefly, leaving in 1949. During her stay in Moscow she attended high holiday services and was mobbed by thousands of Russian Jews chanting her name; Stalin's repression of Jewish identity in the Soviet Union made many observers wonder whether there was still a strong sense of community, but the crowd's welcoming treatment provided the answer. The picture on the back of Meir's Israeli shekel banknote is that of the crowd in Moscow surrounding her and lifting her in happiness. She then entered the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) as a member of Mapai and served continuously until 1974.

From 1949 to 1956, Meir was the Israeli Minister of Labor. In 1956, she became Foreign Minister under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. The previous Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, had ordered that all members of the foreign service Hebraicize their last names. Golda had ignored that order as ambassador, but now that she was becoming Foreign Minister herself, Ben-Gurion asked Golda to change her name to a Hebrew name. She chose Meir, meaning "illuminate."

In the early 1960s, Meir was diagnosed with lymphoma, which she concealed, concerned that others might deem her unfit for service. She resigned from the Cabinet in 1965, citing illness and exhaustion from her years of service. At first, she returned to her modest life, but was soon called back into service. She served as Secretary General of the newly-created Alignment for eight months and retired again on August 1 1968.

After Levi Eshkol died suddenly on February 26 1969, the party chose Meir to succeed him as Prime Minister. Meir came out of retirement to take office on March 17 and served as Prime Minister until 1974. When Meir took office, Israel was brimming with confidence, having won a decisive victory in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and capturing large areas of territory in the Six-Day War. Nonetheless, Meir had to deal with the continuing Egyptian shelling of Israeli forces along the Suez Canal in the War of Attrition.

Seeking to avoid the United States Department of Justice, underworld kingpin Meyer Lansky applied for citizenship in Israel. According to reports, while his case was being presented to Prime Minister Meir, at the mention of the word "Mafia," Meir is said to have stopped the speaker, interjecting "Mafia? Mafia? No Mafia." Lansky eventually ended up back in the U.S. to face charges.

Following the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, Meir appealed to the world to "save our citizens and condemn the unspeakable criminal acts committed."http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/campaigns/middle_east/midmun.xml Meir and the Israeli Defense Committee felt that the world did not adequately respond, and therefore authorized the Mossad to kill Black September and PFLP (Operation Bayonet) operatives wherever they could be found (Morris 1999). The 1986 TV film Sword of Gideon, based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, and Steven Spielberg's subsequent movie Munich (2005) were loosely based on these events.

In the leadup to the Yom Kippur War, Israeli intelligence was not able to determine conclusively that an attack was imminent until the day before the war began. Six hours before the outbreak of hostilities, Meir met with Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan and general David Elazar. While Dayan continued to argue that war was unlikely, Elazar advocated launching a pre-emptive strike on Syrian forces.

Meir believed that Israel could not depend on European countries to supply Israel with military equipment, and that as a result, the only country who could come to Israel's assistance would be the United States. Fearing that the U.S. would be wary of intervening if Israel were perceived as initiating the hostilities, Meir finally decided against launching a pre-emptive strike. In hindsight, this was apparently a wise decision; then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later confirmed Meir's assessment by stating that if Israel had launched a pre-emptive strike, Israel would not have received "so much as a nail". Meir's decision may have been crucial in making Operation Nickel Grass politically feasible for the United States.

Following the Yom Kippur War, Meir's government was distracted by internal squabbles among the governing coalition and had to face serious questions over strategic misjudgments as well as the general lack of leadership that resulted in inadequate preparedness at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. On April 11 1974, Golda Meir resigned as prime minister, and she was succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin on June 3 1974.

On December 8 1978, Golda Meir died of cancer in Jerusalem at the age of 80. She was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on December 12.

Golda Meir's story has been the subject of many fictionalized portrayals over the years. She has been portrayed by actresses as diverse as Swede Ingrid Bergman and Australian Judy Davis in the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982), and the Jewish-American Tovah Feldshuh on Broadway (she also played Meir later in O Jerusalem (film).) The Broadway show about her was mildly controversial in that it improbably suggested that Meir considered using nuclear armaments during the Yom Kippur War. In 1977 she was portrayed by Anne Bancroft on Broadway in William Gibson's play Golda.

Most recently, she was played by actress Lynn Cohen in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich. She is also portrayed by Valerie Harper in William Gibson's play Golda's Balcony, touring various North American cities in 2005 and 2006.

* Meir was the first former American citizen to become Prime Minister of Israel. In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu -- also a former American citizen -- was elected prime minister. * Meir was allegedly the second female head of government to oversee the development of a nuclear weapons program. She was preceded by Indira Gandhi (who took office in 1966) and followed by Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto. * Meir on her view of Israel's position in the Middle East: "The Muslims can fight and lose, then come back and fight again. But Israel can only lose once." * In an interview published on 1969-06-15, the Sunday Times quoted her saying: "There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." * "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Sometimes cited as a statement to the National Press Club in Washington, D. C. in 1957. This seems the most widely quoted of many variants, and the only widely cited original source, but a more specific date is needed here. There are also indications that this statement was made in 1972, which might be a more likely date. * Prime Minister Meir was a chain smoker, smoking well into her 70's.

*Evian Conference *Golda Meir Library

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*Prime Minister Golda Meir — Israeli Prime Minister's Office *Knesset Member, Golda Meir — Knesset profile

*Golda Meir's American Roots — American Jewish Historical Society *Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs *Jewish Agency For Israel *Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition *Jewish Virtual Library *Orthodox Union *Picturing Golda Meir — Photographs from the Collection at the UWM Libraries *Women's International Center

*Israel elects first female leader — BBC News *Yom Kippur War: Selected Documents — Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

*Quotes by Golda Meir — Listing of various quotes by Golda Meir *Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership — Metropolitan State College of Denver *U.S. Library of Congress — Golda Meir House, Denver, Colorado *Golda's Balcony — Official site of the touring production