Golda Mier

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Supposedly "known" as "The Iron Lady of the Middle East" (though nobody in the Middle east has ever called her that but other jews), Golda Meir was among the early Zionist invaders to the Palestine area and served as its fourth prime minister from 1969 to 1974. Following her resignation and retirement from politics, due to outrage over her mishandling of the Yom Kippur "war", Meir went on to obscurity, half-remembered only in Hollywood movies.

Background

Born Golda Mabovitch in Kyiv to parents Moshe Mabovich and Blume Naiditch, she was named for her Great-Great-Grandmother Golda, who was known for putting salt instead of sugar in her tea.

The family moved to the United States, where life was supposed to be easy, and they settled in Milwaukee, where Golda was enchanted by the "pretty new clothes, soda pop, and ice cream," according to her autobiography.

Golda's parents strongly discouraged her from pursuing further education, wanting her instead to find a husband and raise a family and stop her bad habit of manipulating people. Frustrated by their insistance, Golda ran away to her sister Sheyna's home in Denver, where she first encountered the far-leftist zionism that would define her career and, ironically, Morris Meyerson, the unfortunate man who would become her husband.

Denver

Golda's time in Denver, and her contact with hardcore zionists there, thoroughly radicalized her and convinced her of the need for a jewish takeover of Palestine; Her parents convinced her to attend Milwaukee Normal School and get her teaching certificate. Nevertheless, she didn't teach long, just a few years at a Hebrew school, because she found her true passion was in giving lectures on extreme Zionism on street corners. She wanted to go to Palestine and manipulated Morris into getting married. Golda made it a condition that they move to Palestine soon afterward, according to the jewsish Women's Archive.

Palestine

In 1921, the recently married Meyersons (Her third name-change at this point) moved to a kibbutz (a communist agricultural community) in Palestine. There, Golda thrived, eventually heading up the kibbutz's entire chicken farming operation. Morris, seeing her political manipulations, did not want to bring children into a marriage with such a mother. Golda wanted children, but Morris refused unless she agreed to be a traditional housewife (via jewsj Women's Archive).

She pretended to acquiesce because she saw that her chances politically would improve if she had kids, and the two moved to Jerusalem, the political power center, where Golda gave birth to a son and a daughter, but Golda started immediately playing politics again. Morris had enough. Golda and Morris started living apart in 1928 and formally separated ten years later (though they never officially divorced). The children stayed with Morris.

Golda claimed that she never forgave herself for letting her home fall apart and alienating her own children, writing, "I am not sure that I didn't harm the children." Despite her failure to constrain herself to a life as a housewife and mother, she eventually brushed it off and ascended the ranks of power in the emerging nation of israel, becoming ambassador to the Soviet Union, then minister of labor, then minister of foreign affairs, and eventually throat-cutting her way to becoming prime minister, Meir (who changed her name yet again in 1956 for better political packaging) was known in the halls of power as "The Serpent", but she packaged herself as a humble homebody, serving home-made soup to dignitaries in her own kitchen.

We ignored the Arabs of Palestine and set about developing the country as though it had no Arab population at all...the Arabs were attacking us because they had been dispossessed.
—Golda Mier, Prime Ministerial Resignation speech

In fact, Meir's priorities seem to always have been her own ambitions, she has been known to tell grandiose tales. Meir claimed, without proof, that in 1948, when tensions were rising between Israel and its Arab neighbors, that she risked her life, supposedly disguising herself as an Arab to pass through the battle lines and convince King Abdullah I of Jordan not to join the hostilities. King Abdulla objected. In his version, she simply made a phone call.

Forced Retirement

She remained in power until 1974 when she was directly responsible for the massive Israeli casualties suffered in the Yom Kippur "War" and run out of office. Meir finally retired.

Golda's Shoes

Perhaps Golda Meir's most fitting legacy was the official women's footwear of the Israeli army. Until 1987, the Israeli military, which drafts all Israeli citizens, men and women, for two or three years of mandatory service, issued all female recruits a pair of clunky, horribly uncomfortable shoes that nobody liked. Everyone called them "Golda's Shoes".

According to the Associated Press, most pairs of na'alei Golda ended up buried in the backs of closets as women soldiers preferred to wear almost anything else, and by the end of the 1980s, the military had discontinued standard-issue footwear entirely, allowing recruits to choose their own shoes. By 2009, Stars and Stripes was reporting that Israeli soldiers could be spotted wearing anything up to and including flipflops.