Golda
Meir is a heroine in the true sense of the word; she is nicknamed “The mother of modern Israel”.She was born
Goldie Mabovitz in Kiev, Russia in 1898 and her family moved to Milwaukee
Wisconsin in 1903 where she eventually taught in the Milwaukee Public Schools
system.Morris Myerson married her in
1921 and she convinced him to move to Israel where they joined a kibbutz farm with their two
children in Merhavyah. She was what the Bible calls in Proverbs 31 – a virtuous woman.She was a Zionist and was actively involved
in the Jewish women’s labour movement.Their marriage broke up in 1945 and she became ambassador to Russia in 1948.When Israel declared itself a nation in that same year, Golda
Meir went to the United States with the hope of maybe
gathering donations for the war effort back in Israel.On one
evening in New York
City, she raised
30 million dollars to purchase much-needed supplies and weapons to counter the
vicious Arab attacks in Israel.In 1956, she changed her name
to Meir, a Hebrew form of Myerson and in 1969, she
became the first and only female Israeli prime minister.As prime minister, she promoted her socialist
agenda that included improvements in education and massive housing programs to
encourage immigration.Her most
difficult test as prime minister was during the war of Yom Kippur in October
1973 where Egypt and Syria caught Israel off guard and attacked from the north and from the south.In her last years, she became closer to her
family and died on December 8 1978.