Herzog meets Golda star Dame Helen

BY DAVID SAFFER

Dame Helen Mirren, who portrays former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir in a newly released film, met with President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal last week.

The Academy Award winning actress was visiting Israel for the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival where Golda was screened.

The film, directed by Guy Nattiv, who attended the meeting with Herzog, concentrates on Meir’s actions during and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Israel miraculously overcame a surprise attack by the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan on the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.

Herzog said, “Golda was an important figure who bravely led the government. She was a historical figure and had a significant influence on our social structure.”

Dame Helen thanked the President and First Lady for the welcome.

She said: “Golda is one of the greatest roles to play. I was a young woman when she was elected, and to see a woman leading a complex country like Israel was a seminal moment. I am often asked if I see a connection between the great female leaders I have portrayed. The closest connection I see to Golda is Queen Elizabeth I in terms of her absolute dedication to her country. She had great charm.”

Dame Helen added that Golda is one of the most “extraordinary characters” she has played, noting: “Her commitment to her country was over everything, over family, over personal contentment, over personal ambition.”

In the film, Liev Schreiber plays US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Lior Ashkenazi is IDF Chief of Staff David Elazar, Rami Heuberger is Moshe Dayan and Ohad Knoller IDF Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon.

Israel's fourth Prime Minister was born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev (Ukraine) in 1898.

When Golda was eight years old, her family fled to the United States to escape persecution along with thousands of Russian Jews. Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she joined a Zionist youth movement, married Morris Myerson, and, in 1921, immigrated to Palestine, joining Kibbutz Merhavia.

Three years later the Meyersons moved to Jerusalem where Meir held positions in Histadrut and became a member of its inner circle. She replaced Moshe Sharett in 1946 as acting head of the political department of the Jewish Agency until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

In June 1948, Meir was appointed Israel's first ambassador to the Soviet Union. Elected a Member of Knesset in 1949, she served as Minister of Labour and National Insurance to 1956.

Meir was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs then as Secretary-General first of Mapai and then the newly formed ‘Alignment’, made up of three Labour factions.

Meir succeed Prime Minister Levi Eshkol following his death in 1969. In the October ‘69 elections, she led her party to victory.

Shortly after taking office, there were military actions along the Suez Canal ending in a cease-fire agreement with Egypt eventually broken by the Yom Kippur War.

As Prime Minister, Meir was respected and had an iron will. She demonstrated her leadership on many occasions, most notably after the Munich Olympics, when she ordered Mossad to hunt down the Black September leaders behind the murder of Israeli athletes.

Cleared by the Agranat Commission of Inquiry from direct responsibility for Israel's unpreparedness for the ’73 war, she led her party to victory in that years’ elections before resigning in mid-1974.

She withdrew from public life and wrote her memoirs, My Life, but was in the Knesset to greet Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on a historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.

Meir died in December 1978, aged 80. Her childhood home in Colorado was rededicated as a centre of Jewish learning last year.

The Golda Meir House Museum in Denver is the only residence in the United States that celebrates Meir’s life. Jewish artefacts include a mezuzah and tzedakah box used by the former Prime Minister.