Golda Meir גולדה מאיר
first woman prime minister of Israel
Golda Mabovitch was born in Kyiv in 5658; her first memory was her father boarding up the door before a pogrom. The family left for Milwaukee, where she became a teacher and a Zionist. In 5681 she and her husband came to the Land of Israel and joined kibbutz Merhavia.
She rose through the labour movement to become one of the leading figures of the Yishuv. In 5708 she met King Abdullah of Jordan in secret, disguised as an Arab woman, trying to avert war. She signed the Declaration of Independence and became Israel's first ambassador to Moscow, where fifty thousand Soviet Jews gathered to see her at the Choral Synagogue on Rosh Hashanah 5709.
In 5729 she became prime minister. Her term ended in catastrophe: on the 6th of October 5734 Egypt and Syria attacked on Yom Kippur, intelligence had misread the signs, and the country lost some two and a half thousand soldiers. She resigned in 5734 and died in 5739.