Trudy Gold
Golda Meir: Matriarch of a Nation

Trudy Gold | Golda Meir Matriarch of a Nation | 07.05.21

- Okay, well, good morning from LA to everybody. Happy Monday. And I hope everybody had a good fourth of, all the Americans had a good fourth of July weekend. Trude before I hand over to you, I just wanted to say that next week we are changing the schedule a little bit. On Wednesday, we have added a fireside chat with Niall Ferguson and George Osborne. So they will be replacing Patrick and that’ll be six o'clock London time. Is that right Trudy and Judy?

• Yeah, it’d be great.

• And it should be excellent. It’s actually, I haven’t organised it. My son and my son-in-law have organised it and we are hopping on their Zoom and webinar. But I thought it was going to be, yeah, I thought it was going to be a real, it’s really going to be an excellent presentation. I’m sure and I wanted our participants to benefit from it. All right, Trudy, I’m going to hand over to you today, Golda Meir, matriarch of a nation.

• Thank you very much, Wendy.

• [Wendy] Thank you very much, looking forward. Thank you, Trudy.

• Thank you. Good evening, everyone from London. And Judy, if you don’t mind, can I have the quick first picture of Golda as a young girl? Yeah, there she is.

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

That’s Golda Meyerson around 1904. And there you see her in the second picture at a Poale zion pageant in 1919. So who was this woman that I’ve had the chutzpah to call the matriarch of a nation? Golda was an incredible life force and a ruthless, resolute, extraordinary woman who really gave everything to her people. And really her life coincides with so many important events in Jewish history. And what I’m going to tell you about her life up until 1948, because we’ll be dealing with post 48 later on next year. But I just felt that in many ways, I want to celebrate the life of an incredible woman. And at the same time, for some of you who’ve joined new, I think it will help slotting her into Jewish history because it would also give me the opportunity to talk about some of the most important events that occurred in the late 19th, early 20th century.

So who was Golda Meir? Of course, Golda Meir is the name she took in Israel and its hebraization of the name. She was born in Kiev in 1898. And of course, Kiev, which is now in the Ukraine, was part of the Russian empire. So she is born in the last, in the reign of the last tsar of the Russians, Nicholas the second, the weak, completely ineffectual Nicholas, who’s ruling over the largest empire in the world when it is really falling to bits. And what had happened in Russia, we know according to Stalin, who was later commissar for nationalities, there were over 112 different national groups living in an empire that covered a sixth of the surface of the globe. And it’s the Jews who lived to the west of the empire.

The reason Jews lived to the west is that from the middle ages onwards, there was a huge exodus of Jews into Eastern Europe, into the kingdom of Poland. Poland then incorporates Lithuania and then incorporates the Ukraine. That was the heartland of the Jewish world. Beginning in 1772, culminating in 1815, Russia takes over the majority of these areas. And from then on, the largest Jewish population in the world, the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, are living under Russian domination. And when Golda was born in 1898, it’s the reign of the last of the tsars. And of course, his end is going to be terrible revolution.

Now, the tsarist authorities in many ways used the Jews to ward off revolution. Not only were a disproportionate number of the revolutionaries Jewish, but the Jews were the most hated group in Russia. In the traditional Russian Orthodox Church, they are the Christ killers, they are the parasites. So the negative image of the Jew. And interesting, Golda’s earliest memory, which she writes about in her diary, is her father having to actually board up their wooden house because of the pogroms. You know, I think it’s important to remember just how poor these people were.

By 1900, 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe were on poor relief, mainly given to them from charity of Jews who had already made it, mainly to America, and of course through the auspices of Jewish charity organisations. So 40% were on poor relief. And Jews were leaving Eastern Europe. They were either leaving because of fear of pogrom, or because of economic necessity and Golda, her mother’s name was Blume, her father was Moshe and she was one of eight children. Five tragically died when they were young. This is not an uncommon story in the 19th century. So many, the infant mortality rate was appalling and only three survived. Her eldest sister Sheyna, who was born in 1889, her beloved sister, probably the most important person in her life, and Tzipke, who was born in 1902. So she is the youngest surviving sibling.

Now, because of poverty, and because of the horror of the situation, there was a series of terrible pogroms in 1903, which culminated in a pogrom in Kishinev, and it led the father, Moshe, he leaves to go where? To the goals of the Medina. He goes to America, to New York City to try and find work, and he’s part of the exodus. 40%, as I’ve said, over 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe are going to get out. And this of course means the largest communities in America, Britain, South Africa, many of you listening today, it will have been your ancestors who got out, along with Golda Meir’s father. Now, and his pattern followed many other patterns.

The father or the elder brother, there’s no elder brother in this case, would go first, and what would they do? They try and make enough money to bring over other members of the family. Sometimes they just stayed in America, there were desertions. It’s not the rosy, marvellous picture, the nostalgia of the shtetl. It was a tough, hard life. But anyway, he goes to New York, and in his absence, the mother, the mother, Blume, takes her children to Minsk. She takes them to Minsk because that’s where the rest of her family are. Minsk today, of course, is the capital of Belarus, again, part of the Pale of Settlement. And up until the Second World War, the city was about 40 percent Jewish.

I’ve travelled in all over this region and even today, it’s terribly primitive, it’s very, very backward. And one wonders in many ways how these incredibly vital individuals actually managed to survive. And how did Blume survive? How did she feed her children? She peddled freshly baked bread, and she had to go to regions where she could actually get money for it. So if you think about it, she walked and walked to be able to sell bread to be able to feed her family. Important to remember that Golda is forged in fire. The memory of the pogroms grinding poverty and how to be tough.

And in 1905, the father Moshe, he moves to Milwaukee in Wisconsin in search of work, and he found employment in the local railway yard. I mean, he’s doing physical work. And the following year, he’d raised enough money to bring his wife and three children to America. And what does Blume do? The enterprising mother, who’d lost five children, remember, she sets up a little grocery store in the north side of Milwaukee. And by the age of eight, when the mother went off to market, the youngest child, Golda, is actually looking after the store.

So from the age of eight, she’s given huge responsibility. And she went to a fourth grade school, which is now of course named the Golda Meir School between 1906 and 1912. She was always a leader. She was also the cleverest girl in the class. She becomes the valedictorian when she graduates. She organised, and you’ve got to understand the poverty of many of the immigrant children, not just the Jewish children. And Golda, who was always a huge spirit, where did it come from?

Just look at those eyes of hers, those eyes, the tenacity. She organised a fundraiser to raise money for textbooks for the classmates who couldn’t afford them. So already a huge social conscience. So at the age of 10, she actually rents a hall for a fundraiser. She’s an absolutely extraordinary woman. She graduates later on top of the class. And at age 14, she also begins to teach part time to bring a bit more money into the family coffers. And we know that she worked at the Milwaukee Public Library. She gave tutorials. She also worked at Schuster’s department store. So she worked, she worked, she worked. And her mother wanted her to leave school and arrange marriage, but Golda always resolute that this is not what she wanted.

So what she did was she ran away to her sister. She had enough money saved. To go to Denver, Colorado, why? Because her beloved Sheyna, the elder sister, had married and was living in Colorado. She married a man called Korngold. Now in the home of in the home in Colorado in Denver, the Korngold family had created a kind of centre where all sorts of immigrants could come and meet and discuss the meaning of life. A lot of Jews finished up in Denver, Colorado because of the air, TB. Think about the mountainous air, think about the think about the mountains, the deserts, the the geography of the place.

The air was very very pure so people came and they came to Sheyna because she created this kind of atmosphere where a bunch of young Jewish intellectuals came together to discuss the meaning of life. And what did they discuss? They discussed Zionism, they discussed socialism, they discussed socialist Zionism, they discussed the Bund. This was really and literature. You know there was this dream in Zionist circles to create the ideal person. I think it’s important to remember as we look at the kind of criticism the Jewish state has today out of all proportion and to think back to the dreams of Zionism.

These young Zionist intellectuals, and Golda becomes a Zionist very early on, and you can see her in the second picture in Milwaukee when she’s 20 years old here and it’s a pageant and she has joined Poale Zion having talked about Bundism, talked about Zionism, talked about socialism. In the end what attracts her is socialist Zionism and you will see from that picture the Jewish rebirth. This is what it’s about, and what does Jewish rebirth mean? To Poale Zion what it meant was we are going to go to Palestine and we are going to create the perfect state. It’s going to be based on social justice, it’s going to be based on socialist ideas and of course the pinnacle of these young, of the achievement of what is really the second and third Aliyah is what?

It’s the kibbutz movement. The first kibbutz was in 1908. It’s the moshavim. It’s totally cooperative living. And later on she wrote about her time in Denver. To the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form these talk-filled nights in Denver played a considerable role. And it was in Denver that she met a very gentle man, a man called Maurice Meyerson. His dates are 1898, he’s born the same year as her. He dies in 1951. He was a sign painter, that’s what he did to earn a living but he adored classical music. He was a real intellectual, a very, very gentle man. Anyway, she goes back from Denver to graduate in 1915. She’s an active member of Poale Zion and not only that, she very quickly discovers her skill as an orator. She could engross a meeting.

So in these kind of, if you can think of all these immigrant Jewish populations, they’re looking for answers to the meaning of life and she becomes this great advocate for socialist Zionism. 1916 she goes to Teachers College and in 1917 she took a position at a Yiddish speaking school in Milwaukee and more and more her involvement and Maurice asks her to marry him and she had a precondition. Her precondition was that they would go and live in Palestine. She was not, if you like, she was the kind of Zionist who believed that it had to be settlement in the land. I mean we could argue long and hard what Zionism means and was there such a thing prior to the establishment of the state as diaspora Zionism.

But she is the kind of Zionist who doesn’t just believe in supporting the state, she believes in creating the state. So that was her dream and she throws all her energies into Poale Zion and she actually, then of course, the war and America enters the war and it stops any dreams of Palestine at that stage but what she does is she goes on a fundraising tour for Poale Zion which takes her across America and she becomes famous in the movement making speech after speech amongst poor immigrant communities raising just a little bit of money here, there and everywhere. And it’s not until 1921 that with Sheyna, Sheyna and her husband and Maurice and Golda they go to Palestine and they join a kibbutz. Can we have a look at the kibbutz please, Judy? Let’s see the next picture, please.

Oh no, that’s her, sorry, that’s with her husband, Maurice Morrison. You can see the gentle face of Morrison. There she is in the grounds of kibbutz Merhavia. And she wrote this, to me being Jewish means, and has always been, being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted on it. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? And over the next few months, I’m going to be running quite a few lectures on Jewish identity, how Jews dealt with the ravages of the 19th and 20th century in terms of Jewish identity. And for her, her Jewish identity, and she’s not religious, she is a cultural Jew, she is a historic Jew, and she believes in the destiny of the Jewish people being fulfilled in the land of Israel.

In fact, I should mention the first kibbutz and the first application to kibbutz Merhavia was turned down. It was rejected. It was in the Jezreel Valley. She wrote a lot about her time in the kibbutz. It was accepted mainly because Maurice actually bought a phonograph with him, but it took a while for the kibbutz to accept her and to accept particularly him. And of course, in the kibbutz, it’s a very socialist kibbutz, which meant you spent a lot of time in one department. You’re talking about total equality. So basically, if you ran the office one week, one month, the next month, you’d be working in the fields. And she wrote in her memoirs that they had a loo that was outside the area, and you had to walk quite a long way. And there was only one coat for the kibbutz. And it didn’t matter if you were short or tall or fat or thin, basically.

For a woman, if you left the kibbutz and it was winter and you had to go into town, there was only one coat. They even shared their clothing. So this is communal living. And not only is it communal living based on the soil, this is to create the new Jew. And what kind of new Jew do you create? They’re going to be intellectually strong. They read the classics. They read the classics in many, many languages, but also they are going to till the soil of their ancient homeland so that they can regenerate. This kind of Zionism, the Zionism of Golda, actually rejects the diaspora. The diaspora is bad for the Jews. It’s done something that has eroded our souls.

If you think of the words of Aaron David Gordon, who was the great mentor of labour Zionism, he said, one of the tragedies of the Jew in the diaspora. Bearing in mind, of course, that Jews were not allowed to engage in many crafts because it was always Christian guilds. They weren’t allowed to own land. But Aaron David Gordon, he said, the problem is in the diaspora, we say, let John and Mustafa do the work for us. If we want to become a whole people again, we must do the work for ourselves. And this was very much the philosophy that Golda took on. And we know that in her time on the kibbutz, her duties included picking almonds, planting trees. She also worked in the chicken coo and she ran the kitchen.

Very soon, her leadership skills were recognised and she was appointed a representative to the histadrut. Now the histadrut had been established under the British Mandate in 1920. If you remember, the British military occupation is running Palestine between 1918 and 1921. In 1921, the first military, the military leave and the first High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, takes over. And on Thursday, when I lecture on Churchill, I’m going to be talking more about what was happening on the political side. But anyway, the histadrut was set up really as a general federation of labour. It was to look after workers rights in Palestine. It was to help with immigration. And later on, of course, it becomes the power base of David Ben-Gurion, who is going to become very close to Golda Meir.

And so by 1920, with the Third Aliyah, it’s a unified organisation for all Jewish workers, and it’s very much left wing. Later on, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who believed in a free market economy, amongst many other things, his followers who come to Palestine, come in a different route. He creates betar. And so, but the majority of those who are settling at this stage are socialist Zionists. Now Maurice has a terrible time on the kibbutz, he hates it and they’re forced to move to Tel Aviv. She doesn’t want to go, she loves the kibbutz life and again she finds, and it was very hard for her, if you read her autobiography, it was a time of huge poverty, having to make ends meet, but she finds employment in the histadrut.

The marriage is very very uneasy at this time, they have one child but the marriage is very uneasy and Golda goes back to the kibbutz for a while. But in 1926 there’s a reconciliation and a second child is born. She had to take in washing to supplement her income. I mean this is the woman who is going to become Prime Minister of Israel and walk the world. She knew how tough life could be. And I think it’s also interesting to look at Golda the woman, because the question I don’t know the answer to but I’m throwing at you at this particular period, was it possible for a woman to have such a dream as Golda’s, to have a marriage and to be a successful parent?

I mean it’s fascinating, if you look at many of the lives of the people who really make a mark on the world, their personal lives suffer as a result. Is it more so for women than for men? And it’s a question mark and it’s just something for you to think about. Anyway, by 1928 she’s come back to politics, she’s Secretary of the Women’s Labour Union for the histadrut. She also believes very much passionately in the rights of women and the kibbutz movement did believe in total equality. It’s important to remember that and in some kibbutz because women had to work alongside men in fields, what was happening was that they set up children’s houses. And again this is a very very contentious issue isn’t it? Is that the way for people to be?

So anyway it was very much her field and in 19- After the reconciliation she had a second child, a second daughter, but in 1932 her daughter had a serious kidney complaint that couldn’t really be treated in Palestine. So she decides to go to America to try and obtain treatment. And while she’s in America to obtain treatment for her daughter, at the same time she works with pioneer women to raise money for Palestine. Now it’s important how Zionist were American Jews, how Zionist were British Jews. I’m sure many of you, and I think the same is true of South African Jews, many of you will remember the blue and white box in your family’s homes.

I can remember it in my grandparents’ houses. They believed they were Zionist, they didn’t live in Israel, but they believed- In Palestine, but they believed they were Zionist because they gave charity. And much of the charity to Palestine, didn’t come from the wealthy, it came from ordinary folk. You’ve got to remember the bulk of the, I would say those Jews who… The bulk of Jews in the diaspora, in the West, at this stage were not Zionists. They were trying so hard to become citizens of the countries they live, of the Jewish religion. That’s one of the reasons in a later presentation I want to concentrate on identity.

For Golda it’s quite simple. The Jewish destiny has to be Palestine. And so she’s really, she comes back to Palestine, she really works her way up through the histadrut. She’s an incredibly hard worker, she’s very clever, she’s very talented, and she also is very ruthless. It’s fascinating, when I read books on Golda they often use the word ruthless, and when men succeed in the same way they don’t use the word ruthless. I just, I’m just throwing that into the soup. I don’t know if it means anything. And of course, she’s back in Palestine by 1934, and you can just imagine what’s happening on the world scene because of course, Hitler has come to power in Germany.

And he is committed to a Judenrein reich, and he is prepared to let Jews out of Germany. And between 1933 and 1935, you have a huge influx of German Jews into Palestine, and Europe is becoming more and more dangerous. And basically, for the Zionists in Palestine, they’re looking at the world situation, and remember what Zionism had always said, that antisemitism was a psychic aberration, an incurable disease, and why on earth are you trying it in the diaspora when you should come here.

And of course, at the same time, the British are playing around with, can we open the doors to Palestine, because by this time, the Arab cause, particularly under Haj Amin al-Husseini, the multi of Jerusalem, he later on really crosses from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism, but he is doing all he can to stop Jewish immigration and it culminates of course in a conference in Evian in the summer of 1938 and Golda is sent by the histadrut as a representative, as an observer. She can’t speak, she can only observe.

Now many of you will know all about Evian but what happens is Hitler ratchets up his anti-Jewish policy. He wants the Jews to leave, he wants to rob them and then he wants them out. He wants to create a Judenrein reich and then of course in March 1938 he conquers Austria, I’m not going to use that word, take that word back, the Anschluss, he goes home to Austria and that meant the 200,000 Jews of Austria are now under his control. And the early days of the Anschluss was absolutely terrible.

All you have to do is read the world’s press on it. The rabbis are made to scrub the pavements with toothbrushes, there are suicides, Viennese Jews, that incredible, that incredible population of Vienna that changed the world. Later on in the winter we’re going to spend quite a lot of time on Vienna and Berlin, those incredible centres that really changed the world, not just the Jews, it changed the world and Hitler is pushing them out. Eichmann is going to set up an immigration bureau, rob them, kick them out. But the places they can go to are getting more and more scarce. And it’s in 1938 James P. McDonald who is the commissioner for refugees at the League of Nations, he sets up a conference in Evian to discuss the plight of world Jewry.

Now 32 countries assemble at Evian, it’s a wonderful hotel, it still exists and it has a wonderful golf course and the majority of the delegates just played golf. And Golda is witnessing all of this, she’s there. And what they’re talking about is will countries open the doors to let the Jews in? And basically it’s summed up by the Australian delegate T.E. White, he says Australia doesn’t have a race problem, we’re not going to import one, so this is the kind of language that Golda is hearing and basically at the end the Dominican Republic agrees and the Dutch and the Danes allow a few more in but in the end the bulk of the countries decide to do nothing.

And it’s interesting because Goebbels writes in his diary after Evian, we savages are better than the so-called civilised world because we say what we’re going to do and it’s no accident that just after Evian, Hitler begins to expel Polish-born Jews from Germany, they’re expelled to the Polish border, they’re shot at by the Germans, they’re in the most terrible state and it leads to a young man called Herschel Grynszpan whose parents are there going in and- He’s in Paris, he hears what’s happening to his family, he goes into the embassy in Paris, the German embassy in Paris, he shoots vom Rath the third attaché and that leads to Kristallnacht, so that’s the background and Golda writes in her diary after the Evian conference, the day will come when no one will ever pity the Jews and in the histadrut back in Palestine, she’s working on illegal immigration.

Between 1934 and 1948, much of the work of the organisation in Palestine is to bring Jews in illegally and of course we’ve already discussed what happened to many of those ships, so basically she’s in Palestine through that terrible period, can we go on a bit I think Judy with the next picture please. She’s in Palestine through that terrible period of the war and it’s during the war and look that’s 1946, during the war of course… And we’ve discussed this many times how the news of the Shoah was, it was common knowledge by the end of 1942, by 1944 when Hungarian Jewry was attacked, it’s Auschwitz, people have escaped from Auschwitz and Golda is there and this is the powerlessness of the Jew.

And I think it’s very important to remember, and she talks about this, this is the impact it made on her and on her colleagues. And of course, in 1945 when the war is over, there was this dream that the British would open the gates to Palestine. The new Labour government, and I’ve begun to look at that already, the new Labour government refused to open the gates. Even though, you know, just think about it, Labour Zionists… everyone had believed that the Labour government, which had been before the war and during the war, had been sympathetic to Zionism, would open the gates. They don’t, and there’s all sorts of things that go on in Palestine that I’m going to spend a lot of time dealing with.

But in the end, the civil war begins as a response to the war. Go back to 1942, the Biltmore hotel where the Zionists in America, Ben-Gurion’s there, Weizmann’s there. They say we need a state, we’re not going to play around anymore, we must go for statehood. Because if there had been a state, now this is the Zionist argument you know, would the Shoah have happened? Now that’s something else for you to consider. Because if you want to- One of the ways I try and understand Israel, bearing in mind that one of the main components of Zionism is anti-Semitism, bearing in mind that they saw what was happening and they felt themselves powerless to do anything about it. I think this is what made the mark on the state of Israel.

It’s what in the previous lectures I’ve called Bar Kokhba Ben Zakkai, you know what are the responses of the Jew in the world? And with Golda and her colleagues, what happens in 1945 when the Labour Party refused to open the gates to Palestine? Lots of very complicated events, but in the end it leads to civil war with the Haganah, which is the military arm of the Yishuv in Palestine. Joining with the Irgun and the Lehi to try and bomb the British out to Palestine, the alliance breaks, but the point is you have this will to get the British out. And there’s a terrible day called Black Sabbath where the majority of the Zionist leadership are arrested. And Ben Gurion, of course, is head of the Jewish agency.

And here, and this is when Golda, he’s arrested, and she becomes the director of the Histadrut. And this is her in the Histadrut. Now in 1947, the British decide they’re going to quit Palestine, and the whole issue is turned over to the United Nations. The Arabs make it absolutely clear that there will be war. They say that if you declare statehood, you will be invaded. Now when you say that to Jews two years after the Shoah and you talk about murdering them all, all you’ve got to do is to read the pronouncements of much of the Arab leadership. Could they hold? Now in order to hold, they needed arms, they needed money. Europe of course was awash with arms, but you needed money.

Golda, who after all had been born in Russia but had lived in America for much of her life, her early life, and had perfect English, American, Ben Gurion sends her to America on a fundraising drive. And she writes about this. She prepared a speech, she tore it up before she went into the first hall. And basically, her message was quite simple. There are six million Jews died whilst you stood by, a very unfair accusation actually but for another time. There are half a million of us in Palestine and unless you arm us, we will die.

She raised 50 million dollars in 1947, which is an unheard of amount for any fundraising campaign. And when she arrived back in Palestine, Ben Gurion said to her, madam, you have saved the Jewish state. And of course, in the after the British… The British in the end say that they’re going to quit Palestine. And it will take them six months to get out, and of course in those six months there’s civil war in the mandate. And all the games that the Arabs were playing, the Jews were playing. Is there any hope of peace? And a meeting was organised between Golda and Abdullah of Jordan.

Abdullah of Jordan loathed Haj Amin al-Husseini. You’ve got to also know that all the Arabs, you know if you look at the Arab states around Palestine, the feudal states, they all loathed each other apart from the Iraqis and the Jordanians who actually were related. And their greatest hate was for the Mufti and Ibn Saud who was the head of the Saud dynasty because his family had actually murdered much of the Husseini clan, the Husseini clan being the King of Jordan and the King of Iraq. So, and I’ll be doing this in more depth later on, so basically Abdullah has his own dreams. Abdullah already has trans-Jordan which was once part of the British Mandate. Now he’s got his eye on the whole thing and he goes into negotiations with the Zionists.

You know it’s very interesting why they sent Golda. There were many Arab speakers. Abdullah was a traditional Arab. If you think of Arab, why did they send a feisty woman? I think that was a huge mistake because the point was they didn’t get on. And basically the idea was Abdullah wanted to take over and allow the Jews some sort of, I don’t know, some sort of settlement in Palestine. All these negotiations have come out, of course, under the 50 years rule if you want to read about them. It’s fascinating.

But the negotiations failed. However, one little bit of that negotiation did succeed because a deal was that Abdullah would only go so far into what is now the West Bank. He took most of the West Bank, remember, and because his army, the British-trained Arab Legion under Glubb Pasha, was the best army in the Middle East. But it was probably a bad move to send Golda to, if you think about it, to send her to meet with this very traditional Arab king. Because what was his view of the role of women? And she actually went dressed in Arab headdress across the border. She was also, on a human level, she was incredibly brave.

Now, the next important event was actually for her, I’m talking about her life now, after the establishment of the state, she had the first ever Israeli passport. Why? Because she went as Israeli ambassador to Russia. Now this is fascinating because again, the rewriting of history. Never forget that Russia was the first- America was the first country to recognise Israel. Russia was the first country not just to recognise Israel, but de facto and de jure. And of course, Stalin at that time believed that the Jews in the Middle East, the socialist Jews of the Middle East, would be good for Russia.

Never forget that many of the labour unions in Israel had all sorts of connections with Russian trade unions. There was a big Communist Party in Israel, left-wing kibbutzniks, Golda herself, think of Ben-Gurion, think about Sharett, think about Ben-Zvi. These are very, very ideological people, and they believed that they can do business with Russia. Now, why on earth did Stalin have hopes of the Jews of Russia, of the Jews of Palestine? Well, he’s not going to be able- The Cold War is underway. He’s not going to be able to do business with the feudal Arab countries, is he? At the very least, he will have a neutral state in the Middle East, at the very best, he’s going to have an ally.

So Golda goes to Moscow, and that’s where everything goes wrong, because 50,000 young Jews come out to meet her when she goes to pray at the big synagogue in Moscow. They absolutely mob her. This woman, who is the representative of the free Jewish state of Palestine, and now Israel. And never forget that from 1917 onwards, religion was dead in Russia. If you practised, and they were shown, of course, to show synagogues, Golda goes to the big one in Moscow. Same with churches, but if you wanted any career in Communist Russia, you didn’t go to church, and you didn’t go to synagogue, but Golda… So for 30 years there’s been no instruction in Judaism, Yiddish was allowed, but Hebrew wasn’t, and Zionism was a crime.

But now you have Golda and 50,000 young Russian Jews come out to greet her. And it made Stalin realise that he had a Jewish problem, and this is when Stalin turns, and of course that led to really the Slansky trials, the Doctor’s Plot, and the whole anti-Israel propaganda that came through the Soviet Union that later on infected the West. And it’s Golda the symbol who visits Russia, who tries to cement relations, and it goes incredibly bad. After that she also goes back to America to raise money, and when she returns to Israel, Ma'apai the party has emerged* and she’s elected to the Knesset, and she becomes the Minister for Labour and Development. Ben-Gurion said she was the best man I ever had, and she was in charge of the housing units and welfare.

One of the biggest problems that Israel faced, forget the wars, as though that wasn’t enough, Lynn Julius gave a brilliant lecture last week on the Jews of the Arab world. Now what is absolutely fascinating is that nearly a million Jews had to get out, and a large percentage of them came to Israel, and they came without money, they came without anything, and Israel had to house them, and it’s under Golda’s watch that you have the establishment of the Ma'abarot they’ve got to be housed, they’ve got to be taught Hebrew, of course the incredible Ulpanim and they have to be integrated into a state.

So by 1951 Israel had gone up from a population of half a million to two and a quarter million, and this is under Golda’s watch, the whole issue of the Marbarat and the integration of the Jews of the Arab world into Israel. You know it’s fascinating, I was watching a documentary the other night on India, the partition of India, over a million people were murdered when India and Pakistan were divided up, and what I find fascinating is why is it the issue of the Jews of the Arab world has been completely neglected whilst the issue of the Palestinians, and that’s a tragic history too, I’m not denying it, but what I’m saying is I find it absolutely fascinating to quote Robert Westrich, why is this fight different from all other fights?

Anyway in 1955 she decides to run for mayor of Tel Aviv, but it’s the religious block that reject her candidacy because she’s a woman, and by this time, and unfortunately her husband died in 1951, the marriage had fallen apart, as I said before is it possible to have a career, to do what Golda did, to if you like become in many ways the matriarch of a nation, and it’s in 1956 that she becomes minister for foreign affairs, and this is more for later, but I just want to, because obviously, I want to spend quite a lot of time on the Suez crisis, she had to defend Suez at the United Nations, and this is what she said, we have always said that in the war with the Arabs we have a secret weapon, no alternative.

She also later on had to justify the Israelis kidnapping of Eichmann, and this is her address to the UN then, of all the public addresses I have made there was the one that drained me the most because I felt I was speaking for the millions who no longer could speak for themselves, she was then secretary-general of the Labour Party and she retired in 1968 when she was 70 years old, but in 1969 she came back to actually take over after Eshkol died as the prime minister of Israel, but more about that in another session.

I hope I’ve given you a flavour of Golda, read her autobiography, my life, read books on her because she is an extraordinary individual, and I don’t think I went too far to call her the matriarch of a nation because you know you can read all sorts of stories about her, she was witty, she was funny, she was ruthless, she was tough, she used to have her cabinet meetings in her kitchen and spend a lot of time polishing her kettle, the stories are legendary about her, but she certainly was a life force, so let me have a look at the questions.

Q&A and Comments

Lucy is telling me that the UK academic lead on the history of pandemics is a friend called Mark Soneyson, thank you, and this is from Tony, hi Trudy, I just found out my relative was the editor of an Austrian newspaper post-war, could you kindly direct me where to find out more please, very many thanks. Ah, let me think, you’re going to have to go to the archives and I don’t know if they’re open, that’s the problem.

Anyone saw the play Golda’s balcony, yes. Oh yes, this is from Pamela, reference your discussion before the start of the webinar. Niall Ferguson has recently published a book, Doom the Politics of Catastrophe, it’s about the history of catastrophe.

Now this is from Audrey who’s talking about her family coming to Canada from the Pale of Settlement and Adele Cohen is saying many left because of being kidnapped or conscripted into the Russian army, not being able to retain their Judaism cantonists. Adele, the cantonists were much earlier, they’re in the reign of Nicholas the first, the cantonist system was, he set it up in 1825, there certainly was conscription into the Russian army which is another reason many young people left and of course in the cantonist system peasants were conscripted into the army for 25 years, Jews for 31 years and the first six years was a Russification process and we know that the first meal these boys had to eat was pork, it was to make, get rid of their Judaism.

This is… Oh this is from Sandy Landau who’s saying that her family knew Golda whenever Golda came to America, she stopped at their apartment for tea and special sponge cake.

This is from Marty Cooper in autobiography, Golda Meir calls my relative, Berl Katznelson her mentor, one of the founders of socialist Zionism, yes he was incredibly important, did he ever visit the US? I can’t remember Marty.

Q: What kibbutz was Golda on? A: Merhavia. I think that was, I don’t know that wasn’t cotton, I think it was mainly almonds but I’ll check that for you. That is a great different definition of what it is to be a Jew if possible posted at some time.

This is from John, Golda was a wonderful strong woman, interesting that she loved kibbutz life which I did too but kibbutz was a cooperative community lifestyle whereas politics is more to do with strength of ego, manipulation and manoeuvring.

Q: She could do it all couldn’t she? A: I wonder what she would have chosen if, look she lived in extreme times didn’t she John? I mean if you think of her dates, 18… Look she was born in 1898, she died in 1978, she lived to see the Sadat peace deal even though she was no longer prime minister, she also tragically was prime minister at the time of the 73 war. She lived through some of the most cataclysmic events in Jewish history and she responded to them. I think she went into politics because she believed she… I think there was always a touch of idealism, you know you can be idealistic and ruthless. I think she’s a fascinating character study.

Dr Colin Lecce from Jerusalem, you are 100% correct me the JNF boxes, it was the farthing, half pennies and pennies of the poor that built the state, not the donations of the wealthy. The poor were the grassroots of the Zionist movement in the UK post-war apart from one or two like the Marx, Seif and Wolfson family.

Yes Colin it’s absolutely fascinating, you know when Albert Einstein went with Chaim Weizmann on a fundraising tour of the states in 1921 specifically to make money, to raise money for the Hebrew U, it really was the poor. You know they were the ones who had the dream. I think one of the problems certainly up until the war, the majority of Jews living in America and in Britain, I think let me talk about Britain, that’s the country I’m most qualified to judge on I think, they desperately wanted to be British and can you have allegiance to two causes? Even you know in America I know that the sociologists used to talk about hyphenated identity, is that still possible? You know we’re living in a very tribal time.

This is from Monty, she was a heavy smoker told in later life to stop for health reasons, her response was I’m not going to die young from smoking. She also had a very caustic wit.

Q: Judy why was it such a big mistake to send Golda to meet with Abdullah? A: Because she didn’t speak the same language of him as him, she was a woman and he was an Arab… He, look if you think about the life he led, how many wives would he have had? Women had a very secondary place in his world and for the Zionists to send a woman was in a way you could actually say it wasn’t a front to him. It certainly wasn’t a good PR exercise. Sending Golda to America to raise money was brilliant, because she spoke the language, she was a brilliant fundraiser, and she was a real firebrand. But to send her to meet an Arab leader who was very courtly, very charming to women evidently, but who thought they had a certain place in the world.

This is from Edith. I first met Golda in 1972 at a conference reception at the Knesset, and she looked me in the eye and despite the fact I was obviously pregnant, her eyes were burning with fire, almost frightening. Yeah, yeah.

This is from Bev.

Q: Were non-Jewish people attracted to the idealism of mandatory Palestine in the early years of the 20th century? A: It’s a very good question Bev. There were Philo-Semites, people who helped the Jews. That is… I don’t think there were very many who actually settled there, but if you look at the history, and there it’s another couple of classes that myself and my colleagues might, I’ve got to discuss it with Wendy, but we might work it into the curriculum to look at Philo-Semitism.

Q: There have been people who have really believed the Jews are special, and that there was a mission to help bring the Jews back, so but did they actually settle there? A: I don’t think so. There were a few British soldiers in 1948, mainly because they were in love with Jewish girls, who did help with the war of independence. There was one chap who actually turned his tank around and took it to defend his girlfriend’s kibbutz.

This is Yablok. When I was 12 years old in Montreal, I had the privilege of serving a Golda’s translator. Oh my goodness, I do love you all. I get so much history from you. I’ve had a wonderful letter of Churchill sent me today. I mean, it’s extraordinary. She was the foreign minister in Ben Gurion’s government to come to North America to raise money. She’ll be addressing in Hebrew, the Jewish students, in all the Jewish schools in Montreal, and in Montreal Forum, the famous hockey area. The media scrambled, looking for a kid who can translate for them. I was designated the translator. As we were leaving, Mrs. Meir asked me, she took my hand in both of hers and said to me, finish your education, then come and help us build the land of Israel. We need young people like you. It took 58 years till I made Aliyah. Thank you Golda. Oh, that’s such a lovely story, Brenda. A fabulous story.

And this is from Lynn. Same Brenda Leiblong for a long time in Vancouver, if so, hi after many years.

This is from Lynn Kay. Hi.

Q: Ellie, did the British leave Palestine with the hope to be called back by the Arabs after the Arabs conquered the new Jewish state? A: That is a very good question, Ellie. And we know that Harold Beeley had done all sorts of secret deals, but we’ll be spending a lot more time on this.

Perfidious Albion. Did I say that? John Whizzo, sometimes I get the impression that some Jewish people actually feel more comfortable with Muslims. Have you heard this? So why the Sinos have a lot to answer for? Christians and Jews were only ever tolerated in Islamic nations. They never were and still aren’t regarded as equal citizens. John, that is such a complicated story. Lyn’s begun to address it and I know it’s not my field of expertise and we will be bringing in people to discuss these issues. One of the things that Wendy is determined to do is to give us, we’re going to go for the real rounded view of Jewish history.

Thank you, Carol.

Q: What happened to her children? A: They had a very, she didn’t have… Oh, Clive, I must say to you, Patrick Bade always says to me, what is it about a Jewish audience? They always want to know what happened to the children. They, I don’t think they had a very close relationship with their mother. They survived, but it’s complex, isn’t it?

Q: Israel has never forgiven her for the Yom Kippur War debacle, was this fair? A: Gerald, when we get to it, I want to answer it. It’s, that is again a very difficult question. They did, look, military intelligence knew that the Arabs were going to attack, but the problem was she knew what the world opinion would be. It’s so complex.

This is from Valerie. When I was at school, we used to buy stamps and put them in a book, and when the book was full, it bought a tree in Israel. Yes, of course, I remember all of that.

The independence stayed balanced from 1948 to the mid-50s. Look that they were designed in the USSR. Very much so. I agree with you. This is kind of brutal art, isn’t it? Yes, it’s… Yeah.

This is from Colin, try Professor Laurence Lovett at UCL, leader of pandemics yeah. Yes, thank you. I don’t know what happened to her, whether she had grandchildren. I’ve never checked that out. I’ve lost my place. Sorry, let me go back. Catastrophes here. Let me just go on. Sorry about my hand because I don’t use a… Let’s go to the end.

Q: What about Wingate? Could we have had a better helper? A: Yes, Orde Wingate was fascinating. He helped create the Palmach. Look, he was a Philo-Semite, no question about it. He was also a Bible man. There is a strand of Christianity that believes in helping the Jews, but they’re not all our enemies. It’s important to remember that. That’s why I think we should start introducing a bit of Philo-Semitism.

Q: Could I suggest a biography of Golda apart from her order? A: Look, Maurice, one of the things we are going to do, and I promise you in the holidays, once the website is up, we’re coming up with a comprehensive bibliography. The problem with bibliography, and this is interesting, particularly post 48. I cannot find one historian you all agree with. OK? I think you all know exactly what I mean.

Rachelle Marks, read Amos Oz Panther in the Basement, read his friendship with the British sergeant. Yes, of course. Yeah, Rachelle, you’re completely right. There were good people who took the side of the Jews.

This is my father was in the high school in Milwaukee and our family during the 30s and 40s very supportive the state of Israel. I was born in 34 in a very German Milwaukee. My parents both spoke German and our household was a gathering place for German Jews, as well as others from Austria and some from Eastern Europe. I felt very fortunate growing up with Europeans and exposed to a world beyond the mid-stone Great Lakes. Oh that’s lovely Naomi, yeah, yeah. Must have been so interesting.

Oh, I keep on losing my place today, Jude. What am I going to do? This is from Denise. I love strong women and Golda was certainly that waltz and all I loved as she was so real and she didn’t suffer fools gladly. Denise, I think all children with strong mothers have a difficult time. I love that. Mothers and daughters. You know, one of the things I want to do in the summer, because I think we should have a bit of fun. I’ve been working on a presentation on the image of the Jewish mother in Hollywood, and I think we should have a bit of fun with that.

I read Golda very- But Israel’s prospects from the 68. Are you talking about the ‘67 war? I don’t know about that. There’s a new novel called The Slaughterman’s Daughter, which describes the life of the Jews in the Pale of Settlement. Yeah, I don’t know it. There’s so much information on the Pale. Don’t forget it was the largest Jewish concentration in the world. It covered a huge area of the globe.

And Carol was saying this is a brilliant book, The Slaughterman’s Daughter. It’s interesting, isn’t it? How we get into subjects. Some people go through history, others go through literature, others go through philosophy, theology. It depends what you think of the spine discipline. And then, as my scientist friends would say, and they’re out on the limb.

Q: Were there any other women who were prominent in Israel during Golda’s lifetime, apart from Golda? A: Now, this is a very interesting point, Dale. Now, I was giving a lecture. I was asked to give a lecture on seven greats. And I submitted, this was not for our channel, I submitted seven, and I got an email back saying, why haven’t you included any women? And the problem is you’ve got to think of the role of women in society. You know, one of the issues we face today is that we look at things through 21st century eyes. A woman was still expected to maintain, look, what did Golda’s mother expect her to do? To get married and arrange marriage. She had to run away to her sister. Look, there were women revolutionaries. Why did so many women join the revolutionary parties? Because it offered them equality. Socialist Zionism offered them equality. So the basic, it was very difficult for a woman to take her place alongside men, it’s not to do with ability. I suppose in different ways you’ve got Rosa Luxemburg, you’ve got Emma Goldman, you’ve got Rachel the Poetess, but not the same level because it’s the different roles, the different expected roles of men and women in society and I don’t think we should really, and William said this the other day, again it’s a contentious point, I don’t think if we can judge people through our eyes, I think we have to judge them through the world they came from and I’ll be talking about this on Thursday when I talk about Winston Churchill.

Oh this is from Rosie, I had the privilege of meeting her when she came to speak in Peru, she was a force, my mother was president of WIZO so I got to go backstage and talk to her, I was 12. Oh Rosie that must have been extraordinary, when she went to Peru, when, what year?

I think a lot of you want Jewish responses to pandemics, I think we must have to work this one out. I was thinking more of giving you the history of pandemics but you see I always start with history but I like this.

Q: Would the state of Israel be if Golda had not existed? A: Probably, probably, this is a big question, what were the factors that led to the establishment of the state of Israel? That’s something for your Friday night tables or your Sunday lunch tables, what were the factors that led to the creation 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, what led to the establishment of the state of Israel? It’s a very good question Esther, only you can answer that for you.

One of the reasons the Jews left the Shtetl is because of rabbis control and religious coercion, this is mentioned a lot in Yiddish literature. Yes of course the the rabbinim had great power in the Shtetl and yes that was part of it. One of the great fears, there’s an extraordinary letter that one rabbi writes to another rabbi about Jews going to America. It’s in Land of Our Fathers, that brilliant book, who wrote it Irving Howe, he said, he wrote, we hear that America is a traif land and of course what happens in America, non-orthodox Jewry becomes the majority.

Golda visits her high school in Milwaukee as Prime Minister, yeah the school from being largely Jewish become majority African-American. Yes I remember that Jonathan and of course they gave her such an incredible ovation. Can you imagine it’s an ordinary school and the woman, one of the women who went there became one of the most famous women in the world.

Melanie, did you know that when Golda was in America to fundraise a car rode over her feet and that’s why she was wearing those shoes. Why did she never have the surgery to heal her feet. Melanie no I’ve forgotten that, that’s ugh.

Q: What were the, what’s this one, what were the obstacles that Golda faced as a woman within her own party as she rode to leadership power? A: Well actually in the left it’s less than, I think ideologically they believed in equality but I think when a woman rises to power, certainly at that part of the century, she had to be tougher, in my view she had to be tougher and more able than the men.

Laurence Oliphant, Sheila Lastman, yes of course Lawrence Oliphant, one of the great Philo-Semites, yeah I think we should do a session on him Sheila.

Hi Trudy, I’ve always been told Golda came here for respite treatment at the National Jewish Hospital, not, I’ve never read that, I’ve never read that, I know it was a great centre, no what I read is that she ran away from home because her mother wanted her to have an arranged marriage so she went to stay with her sister in Denver.

Yes Iris, yes she was accompanied by Ezra Danin and in fact his wife writes about the fact that Golda, you know she just wasn’t right for Abdullah. This is, I’m going on.

Oh, this is from Sheridan. Hi, Trudy. On a mission to Israel, we were lucky enough to be invited to Golda’s home for tea. And I took my book called My Life, her biography, and she signed it for me. And that photo sits proudly in my sitting room. Lovely.

Elaine, I worked in the PM Bureau from 73 to 77. I met with Golda after she had left the government and I’d found another job. She absolutely could not understand how I left government service. By the way, her son used to sign a photograph when people asked for her autograph. Oh, that’s lovely Elaine.

Oh, this is from Evie saying she’s new to the site and she likes it. Thank you so much.

And this is from Marlene. I have the blue and white JNF box on the windowsill in my kitchen. It’s the same box I grew up seeing every day in my parents house. Audrey saying she has one too.

And this is from Ellie Kay. My parents came to Palestine in 35 from Germany. And as a child, I remember the British police and the popes who were the British paratroopers manning the barbed wire in Tel Aviv.

Trudy you talked about the role of politics in family life. One simply needs to see Weizmann. His kids never came to Palestine. Also his wife, a paediatrician, was torn between living with him in Palestine and being in the UK with the sons. Another example, of course, is Mandela.

I’ve got to become more dexterous every time I touch the screen it goes again.

It seems that you like biography. Hmm. So do I maybe we should spend a bit more time on biography and weave history into biography.

Q: Do I know about Mickey Marcus, the American who fought for Israel in 1948? A: Yes, I do. And I promise you we will doing a session on Mickey Marcus. One of the things I might be doing in the summer is to look at the films on Israel, including Cast a Giant Shadow, how in the 60s America, Hollywood took on Zionism.

Robert, my son-in-law cautions during Torah study, text without context is like pretext for a proof text. Oh, I like that.

America has yet to reach the level of electing and respecting a woman as leader.

This is from Sybil, talking about Philo-Semitism, there was a diplomat from the Dominican Republic in Palestine, the time of the Evian Conference, who urged his company to offer refuge. Yes, Sybil, I mentioned that the Dominican Republic did, but it never really came to anything. Yeah, there were good people. It’s important to remember that there were a lot of very good diplomats. So, you know, it’s not a completely blanket horrid picture. There were brave, extraordinary people who helped. Unfortunately, there were more of the evil ones and the and then of course, there were those who were totally indifferent. And I wonder how much the world has changed and how we deal with other people.

I think, Judy, that’s about it, isn’t it? Is Wendy there still or is Wendy…?

• I’m here. Okay. I’m here.

• [Trudy] Okay Wendy.

• Thank you, Trudy. That was fabulous. Again, another brilliant presentation.

• [Trudy] Thank you so much.

• An amazing, astonishing woman.

• Isn’t it interesting, the whole talk about women, maybe we should spend a little more time looking at this, the role of women, I think we should.

• It’s very, it’s very difficult to to be, you know, a brilliant mother and a brilliant professional woman, and you know, it’s just very, it’s very tough.

• It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Because if a man has the brilliant career, no one would ever use the you would never say it was ruthless, would you? You wouldn’t say a man was ruthless in that it’s in that context, there’s a lot of-

• I think she was living through very, very tough times.

• She was, yeah.

• So she had to be very strong.

• [Trudy] She was strong. Yeah.

• So I wonder by whose standards one is measuring ruthless. By women’s standards or by men’s standards.

• Exactly. Exactly.

• To be continued. To be continued.

• All right. Take care.

• Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. And just a quick reminder that next Wednesday at six o'clock UK time, one o'clock New York time, is it one o'clock? Well six o'clock for sure and is it one o'clock Trude?

• Yeah, one o'clock. One o'clock New York time. And we’ll have George Osborne in a fireside chat with Niall Ferguson.

• Fabulous. God bless Wendy.

• It should be very interesting. Thanks a lot. See you tomorrow.

• [Trudy] Take care.

• Thank you everyone for joining us. Thanks, Trudy bye bye.