My Life: The Iron Lady of Israel, Golda Meir - IX

Life with children

Though Golda tried to be there for children whenever they needed her, a question raised by her mother and sister always remained unanswered. Whether she deprived her children of their due? She liked to think that they were proud of her but was sceptic about whether it made up for her being frequently absent. She thought that their supporting her was equally important as her being at home when they returned from school. Her guilt would increase manifold when she travelled. She honestly accepted that she was never free of guilt and constantly had a feeling of hurting them in some way. She wrote an article in 1930, it was called The Ploughwoman.


While writing her autobiography she observed that the advanced technology that claimed to make life easier was of great help but problems persisted. ( Excerpts of the article are still very much meaningful as the dilemma still exists, one should read it to understand it fully. ) She said, that when women were forced to work due to genuine difficulty, her leaving the house was justified. Some women could not keep themselves in isolation, and could not be away from the larger social life. Her children could not narrow her horizon,' for such woman there is no rest.'

She stated that mothers who were occupied outside the home had the opportunity to develop and get more compared to being at home, hovering over children constantly. When women devote their entire time to children, did it alone prove their devotion? When women had no life outside, was it the only factor to prove their love?

Working mothers always felt that they did not contribute as their male coworkers or unmarried women. Children demand the mother in health as well as in sickness. She described this as eternal inner division,a double pull, unfulfilled duty towards the family and work. This she called the ' burden of the working mother.'

This was the expression of her constant strife. This used to be deepened when her daughter had health problems for a long time and needed to be observed all the time, her sister and mother were always of great help. Once she was sent to the US for work and was completely absorbed, she wrote to her sister Sheyna, that she wanted to be ' understood and believed '. She wrote her activities were not accidental, they were essential and the influential people ought to be told what the Jewish community wanted. Mostly her mother and sister could not approve of her being a ' public person '. The fact remained that she could not be at home most of the time, there were conflicting demands from both the work front and the home front too.

People who influenced her thought process

She met many when she worked with Histadrut, she worked with people who later were well-known in Israel and in the world too. Ben-Gurion who was almost the personification of Israel, Shneur Zalman Shazar who became the third president of the state of Israel later, Levi Eshkol, who became the third prime minister and some more who occupied important roles later.

Shazar was an emotion-charged and flowery speaker, poet and writer too. He was a true scholar and a talented journalist, essayist and editor. He became the first education minister.

There was a person like Levi Eshkol who was a man of action and if a specific challenge was given to him, he would meet it with creativity and acumen. He supervised the founding of 400 new Jewish villages, with good irrigation and a force to safeguard them.

He was the prime minister of Israel during the 6-day war, criticised a lot then. A rift developed between him and Ben Gurion, despite being his loyal follower for decades. A creative person, someone who would get any job done. Golda trusted him. His idea of distributing 7 lakh immigrants throughout the country helped them get absorbed.
Another personality Golda wrote about was David Remez, he was attracted to solving practical problems of Zionism, transportation, roads, shipping, and local aviation for example. In his youth, he was a poet drawn to socialism, had an interest in Hebrew, and while studying law met Ben Gurion. He came to Palestine left all the past behind and spent five tough years toiling for the nation. Passionately involved in the unity of workers, the future of socialism, revival of Hebrew, worked as a secretary of Histadrut for many years. A member of the drafting declaration of Independence group.

Then she wrote about Berl Katznelson who died in 1944, before seeing the state of Israel. He was an undisputed spiritual leader and guide of the labour movement. He was deeply respected by all. All turned to him for advise or to know his opinion. Golda described him as an ' archaeologist digging truth ', with no concern whether it was ' fashionable or likely to make him popular', ' a man of an unquenchable thirst for truth, penetrating intelligence and tremendous charm, 'had the magnificent intellect to clarify and cut through the confusion '. He believed that the Jewish kind of socialism was certainly different, a society was being formed, so he did not see the class struggle or did not feel had any importance as no class had emerged then. He realised that unselective immigration was to be focused, he was the first to claim statehood for Jewish people. A great admirer of Ben Gurion as the greatest statesman.

He saw the importance of entertaining books in Hebrew, the need to observe the Sabbath ( a day of religious observance and obstinance from work, kept from Friday evening to Saturday evening) and dietary laws in all public institutions to keep the Jewish community united. He always wanted to earnestly know what the youngsters had to say, rather than what the common man wanted to say. With his death, Golda wrote, all lost ' the only man whose opinion valued '.