The Only Woman in the Room : Golda Meir and Her Path to Power

**A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of Israel** In this authoritative and empathetic biography, Pnina Lahav reexamines the life of Golda Meir (1898–1978) through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing alone among men. __The Only Woman in the Room__ is the first book to contend with Meir’s full identity as a woman, Jew, Zionist leader, and one of the founders of Israel, providing a richer portrait of her persona and legacy. Meir, Lahav shows, deftly deflected misogyny as she traveled the path to becoming Israel’s fourth, and only female, prime minister, from 1969 to 1974. Lahav revisits the youthful encounters that forged Meir’s passion for socialist Zionism and reassesses her decision to separate from her husband and leave her children in the care of others. Enduring humiliation and derision from her colleagues, Meir nevertheless led in establishing Israel as a welfare state where social security, workers’ rights, and maternity leave became law. Lahav looks at the challenges that beset Meir’s premiership, particularly the disastrous Yom Kippur War, which led to her resignation and withdrawal from politics, as well as Meir’s bitter duel with feminist and civil rights leader Shulamit Aloni, Meir’s complex relationship with the Israeli and American feminist movements, and the politics that led her to distance herself from feminism altogether. Exploring the tensions between Meir’s personal and political identities, __The Only Woman in the Room__ provides a groundbreaking new account of Meir’s life while also illuminating the difficulties all women face as they try to ascend in male-dominated fields. "One of the founders of the state of Israel, Golda Meir (1898-1978) was Israel's ambassador to the USSR in 1948-49, subsequently served as Israel's Minister of Labor and Foreign Minister, and in 1969 became Israel's fourth Prime Minister. Born to poor and uneducated parents in Kiev as Golda Mabovitz and raised in Milwaukee, she settled in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1917. American Jews of an older generation cherish memories of her as an affable, grandmotherly head of state, a mesmerizing speech maker, a tough negotiator with the likes of Nixon and Kissinger, and as a sort of mother of the Jewish people. However, public memory of her is much more equivocal in Israel, partly due to misogynistic strains in Israeli political culture and to her perceived failures as Prime Minister during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the conflict that arguably led to her resignation and withdrawal from politics. This biography of Golda Meir explores the evolution of her political persona from her teenage years until her death, focusing in particular on her ever-recurring role as the only woman in a room full of male political actors. Pnina Lahav reexamines the story of Golda Meir's early passion for socialist Zionism, her decision to marry early, her separation from husband Morris Meyerson, her decision to leave her children in the care of others in order to pursue her political ambitions, and her conduct first in the Israeli cabinet and then as the country's Prime Minister. Often derided and humiliated by the men with whom she had to work, Golda Meir had her own complicated issues with gender and showed clear signs of having internalized the masculine ideals of the twentieth-century Zionist leadership (as when, for example, she derided her colleague and fellow cabinet minister Abba Eban, a cultivated, highly-educated man, as "effeminate"). And like another notable twentieth-century female political leader, Margaret Thatcher, she was less than supportive of younger women who wanted to follow in her footsteps. While Golda Meir has been the subject of several biographies, Lahav's is unique in its exploration of Golda's complicated and evolving relationship to her identity as a woman, particularly one who ascended to the apex of a patriarchal power structure"-- Provided by publisher. CONTENTS Introduction PART I. GROWING UP 1 In Imperial Russia 2 To America 3 Goldie and Morris Get Married 4 Finding Her Vocation: Political Activism PART II. PALESTINE, 1921–1948 5 The USS Pocahontas 6 A Sojourn in Tel Aviv 7 Comrade Golda and Comrade Morris in Kibbutz Merhavia 8 Love and Marriage: Not a Fairy Tale 9 The Attraction of Socialist Politics 10 Pioneer Women: A Platform of Her Own 11 World War II: The Ground Is Burning PART III. 1948–1964 12 From Israel’s First Emissary to the Soviet Union to Minister of Labor 13 In Israel’s First Cabinet: Golda Is Appointed Minister of Labor 14 Golda’s Conception of the Family 15 Enter the “Other Woman”: Shabbat, the “Sacred Queen,” and the Secular Minister of Labor 16 Golda’s Appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1956 17 Golda’s First International Crisis: The Nationalization of the Suez Shipping Company 18 The African Connection PART IV. 1964–1978 19 Ascendance: Madam Prime Minister 20 Golda as an Object of Humiliation 21 From Bathtub to Pedestal: An Interview with Oriana Fallaci 22 Golda and Her Nemesis: Shulamit Aloni and the Question of Who Is a Jew 23 Who Is a Jew? Individual Rights, Jewish Law, the Expediency of Politics, and the “Foreign Woman” 24 Golda and the Revival of Feminism 25 Nightmare: The Yom Kippur War 26 In the Company of Men 27 The End Acknowledgments Notes Index