Trudy Gold
Golda Meir: Matriarch of a Nation
Summary
Golda Meir was an extraordinary woman with a life that coincided with significant events in Jewish history. In this lecture, Trudy Gold covers Meier’s life up until 1948 and aims to highlight her remarkable journey. Born in 1898 in Kiev, which was part of the Russian Empire, she witnessed her father board up their home during pogroms, which reflects the dire circumstances that many Jews faced. By 1900, 40% of Eastern Europe’s Jews were reliant on charity due to poverty and other hardships. Her early life was marked by challenges, and this introduction helps place her within the context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
On the left, ideologically they believed in equality but I think when a woman rises to power, certainly during that part of the century, she had to be tougher and more able than the men.
Probably, probably, but this is a much bigger question, what were the factors that led to the establishment of the state of Israel? Was it individuals? Was it the Zionist dream? Was it the Shoah? I don’t know the answers, something I ponder on many, many, many, many nights.
Because she didn’t speak the same language as him, she was a woman and he was an Arab. Women had a very secondary place in his world and for the Zionists to send a woman was not exactly an affront to him but it certainly wasn’t a good PR exercise.