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Golda Meir

Israel's Matriarch

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1 of 2 copies available
1 of 2 copies available
A balanced biography of Golda Meir, who was both adored and abhorred, from award-winning author Deborah E. Lipstadt
 
âComprehensive. . . . Always thoughtful. . . . A nuanced account of a leader whose influence endures in the Middle East.ââKirkus Review

 
Golda Meir (1898â1978) was the first and only woman to serve as prime minister of Israel. She was born in Kiev into a childhood of poverty, hunger, and antisemitism. When she was five, her father left to find work in America, and a year later the family settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a teenager she became devoted to Labor Zionism, giving street-corner speeches, and her familyâs home became a destination for Zionist emissaries. Her love for Labor Zionism was so fervent that her boyfriend, Morris Meyerson (her future husband), was often in competition with her dedication to the cause.
 
Zionism prevailed. In 1921, Golda left America for Palestine with Morris and her sister Sheyna. Though the reality of living in Palestine was far from the dream of Zionism, Meir settled on the kibbutz Merhavia and was swiftly appointed to the Histadrut (the General Organization of Hebrew Workers in Palestine). As an ally of the Zionist David Ben-Gurion, Meir played an important role in the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine; proved an almost singular ability to connect and fundraise with diaspora Jewry, particularly Americans; and served in three pivotal positions following Israelâs independence: labor secretary of the newly formed state, foreign minister, and Israelâs fourth prime minister.
 
In tracing the life of Golda Meir, acclaimed author Deborah E. Lipstadt explores the history of the Yishuv and Jewish state from the 1920s through the 1973 Yom Kippur War, all while highlighting the contradictions and complexities of a person who was only the third woman to serve as a head of state in the twentieth century.
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    • Kirkus

      July 15, 2023
      Comprehensive biography of the famed Israeli leader whose legacy has come under criticism in recent years. As Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history and author of Antisemitism: Here and Now and History on Trial, amply demonstrates, Golda Meir (1898-1978) was a woman of action, and she had a way with a sharp riposte: When Richard Nixon commented on Abba Eban's appointment as her counterpart to his Henry Kissinger, saying, "Just think, we now both have Jewish foreign ministers," she replied, "Yes, but mine speaks English." When a British official told her that German POWs would build military bases in Palestine during World War II, she pointed out that Jews were already there and in need of work. When he answered that Jewish militants tended to blow up British structures, she replied, "Nazis are more reliable?" More than possessing a sarcastic streak, Meir held fast to a number of beliefs that both hampered and furthered her goals: that the Arab nations were bent on annihilating Israel, the great powers were not to be trusted, and "her total devotion to the Zionist dream realized in a socialist context." As Israel's sole woman prime minister, she defended these views against both conservatives and a generation of younger Israelis such as Moshe Dayan while retaining strong ties to David Ben-Gurion and his cohort. "Golda and her fellow veterans dismissed this cadre of younger leaders as ambitious technocrats," writes Lipstadt, while they strongly criticized her for her performance during the Yom Kippur War, which "became a little Vietnam, a never-ending encounter with continual losses and no change in the situation." In this always thoughtful analysis, the author closes by wondering whether depictions of Meir as "stubborn" and unable to see shades of gray might not have been rendered as "firm" and "decisive" if Meir had not been a woman. A nuanced account of a leader whose influence endures in the Middle East.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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