Tzionut Hero: Golda Meir Golda Meir (1898–1978) was born Golda Mabovitz in the Ukraine. When she was eight her family moved to the United States, fleeing pogroms. She grew up and was educated in Wisconsin. In 1921 she and her husband made aliyah to Israel, where Golda became one of the founders and great politicians of the emerging Jewish state. When they first moved to Israel, she and her husband Morris joined a kibbutz. On the kibbutz Golda Myerson (she had not yet changed her last name) was quickly elected to represent the kibbutz at the Histadrut, the General Federation of Labor. She was elected secretary of the Women’s Labor Council in 1928. Through the following two decades she gained more and more prominence as a leader of the Zionist movement for the independence of Israel. In 1948 she was one of twenty-four signers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and one of two women. Golda said, “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.” She first served as fundraiser in the U.S. for the fledgling Jewish state, having been issued Israel’s first passport. Then she served as Israel’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union.
“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.”
From 1949–1974 she served as member of the Knesset, fulfilling a variety of roles, including foreign minister under Ben-Gurion. After the SixDay War in 1968 she was called out of retirement to serve as prime minister. She was the first woman to be elected as head of Israel and only the third female prime minister ever in the world. Golda Meir resigned from the post of prime minister after the Yom Kippur War. She died in 1978.
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