The Times Great Women's Lives

by Sue Corbett

  In the 1960s she conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Hallé orchestras. She was a Grand Officier of the Legion of Honour and an honorary CBE and was the recipient of several honorary doctorates.

  Nadia Boulanger, CBE, teacher, conductor and award-winning composer, was born on September 16, 1887. She died on October 22, 1979, aged 92

  GOLDA MEIR

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  PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL WHO NEGOTIATED WITH HENRY KISSINGER THE DISENGAGEMENT OF TROOPS IN SINAI AND THE GOLAN HEIGHTS

  NOVEMBER 16, 1979 (The Times Obituaries Supplement)

  Mrs Golda Meir, who died on December 8, 1978, at the age of 80, was Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, having taken over the office in March 1969 on the sudden death of Mr Levi Eshkol.

  Golda Meir had previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Labour, Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Secretary General of Mapai — the largest political party in the country, approximately the same political colour as the British Labour Party. She had retired from public life, or so she had said, but had been at leisure for only a very short time before she was called upon to take up the highest political position. She retired in June 1974.

  Mrs Meir (née Mabovitch) was born in Kiev, in southwest Russia, on May 3, 1898. Her family and background were much the same as those of the many thousands of Jews who went to Britain and the United States at the turn of the century. Members of an under-privileged and discriminated against minority, they sought their fortune in the west where they had been told freedom and equality were there for the taking, and wealth could be earned or seized. They found the freedom, but too often it was accompanied by poverty and misery.

  Golda was the middle one of three sisters — survivors of eight children born to their parents. Her father left Kiev in advance to prepare a place for his family in Milwaukee. Mrs Mabovitch and the three girls went to wait in the mother’s home town, Pinsk. There Golda’s older sister, a teenager, joined a revolutionary youth movement and the Mabovitch home was one of their secret meeting places. Golda heard the whispered arguments of the ideal society that would one day come, and the socialism she learnt at the time remained with her all her life. Only later as Prime Minister did she mellow into a more muted political colour, when she realized that national economic needs did not always fit into left-wing slots.

  When eventually the family were reunited in Milwaukee, the father was not even making an adequate living, and the parents saw no possibility — nor even any need — for a higher education for their daughter, although she had done well at school. She ran away to her older sister, by then married and living in Denver. They quarrelled and Golda went to live on her own, working first in a laundry and then in a department store. Eventually, her parents hearing of her plight became reconciled and she returned home, went back to school and finished her training to become a teacher. A slight “schoolmarmy” tinge in her attitude to those who opposed her views remained with her.

  While still in Denver she met and fell in love with Morris Myerson, but at that period also she became imbued with the Zionist aim and joined the Poale Zion — the labour wing of the World Zionist Organization, which in the State of Israel became the party of Mapai. She married Myerson although he was not a Zionist and even persuaded him that they must go and live in Palestine. They set sail in May, 1921, when Golda was 23, already mature and determined to follow the path she had set herself no matter what. The twenties were a time of almost economic bankruptcy for the small Jewish community in Palestine. The Myersons went to live on a kibbutz — as most newcomers did then, having very little choice in the matter, but also an idealistic urge to do so.

  However, this was altogether too much for Morris. He wanted to return to the United States. They compromised by going to live in Tel Aviv, where they barely made two ends meet. Yet for Golda it represented the opportunity for taking on public work. Though they had two children, she more and more became involved in politics — her family life was the price she paid. She and her husband separated. At first she spent long periods abroad on behalf of the Labour Women’s Council, but later she became a member of the executive of the General Federation of Labour (the Histadrut), and of the World Zionist Organization, the then de facto government of the Jewish community in Palestine. When in 1946 the conflict between the Zionist leaders and the British Mandatory Government reached its peak with the arrest of a number of Zionist leaders — among them Moshe Sharett (then Shertok), the political secretary — Golda Meir, as much because she was English-speaking as for her abilities, became acting political secretary. Her fearless and outspoken response to British pressure set the pattern of her future political image, and was the fruitful seed which was to ripen into a most successful career. When the British left Palestine and the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the members of the Zionist Executive painlessly and smoothly transformed themselves into the Provisional Government.

  A short time before this, David Ben-Gurion had foreseen the probable attack by Arab states once a Jewish State was established, and he sent Golda Meir on a mission to the United States to raise money and/or arms. Her achievement at the time was another step forward in the esteem in which Ben-Gurion and other colleagues held her. The recognition of Israel only minutes, almost seconds, after it was proclaimed, by both the United States and the Soviet Union, made Israeli representation in both those countries of great importance. A delegation was already in New York and Washington because of the negotiations held there, but Ben-Gurion sent his strongest card — Golda Meir — as the first Israeli Ambassador to Moscow.

  For her, as indeed for all the Jews in Israel, it was as much a mission to Soviet Jewry as to the Soviet Government. Six million brethren, among them relatives, perhaps even parents, certainly brothers and sisters, had been done to death in Europe. How precious was it then to break through the barrier that separated them from this Jewish community in Russia, though somewhat decimated yet still great.

  The sight of the many thousands of Jews who followed Golda Meir through the streets of Moscow to Synagogue on the New Year festival appears to have been the foundation on which later Soviet hostility to Israel was built. Yet Mrs Meir herself never gave up belief that one day the doors of Russia would open to let Jews go out to return to their ancient homeland. And this despite the ever increasing unfriendliness of the Soviet Government, and their stubborn resistance to every overture made by Israel throughout the years to try to win back the initial support. It must have been a source of great satisfaction to Mrs Meir that, just during her term as Prime Minister, Jews reached Israel from the USSR in their thousands. It was the realization of a dream which had for long been dreamt both by the immigrants and by those who received them.

  In February, 1949, the first general elections were held in Israel resulting, expectedly, in Mapai emerging as by far the largest party but without an overall majority, a situation which was still unchanged when Mrs Meir became Prime Minister. Ben-Gurion, forming his first Government, wanted Golda Meir at his side and called her back to Israel to become Minister of Labour.

  As Labour Minister her tasks included finding work for immigrants who in the early fifties reached Israel in their hundreds of thousands. Despite an impossible budget her Ministry managed to shoulder the burden.

  In 1956, Mr Ben-Gurion returned to the Premiership after retiring for about a year and a half to a kibbutz in the arid south. He decided to drop Moshe Sharett who had been Prime Minister in his absence and Minister for Foreign Affairs from the beginning of the State till then. Instead he gave that portfolio to Mrs Meir, his loyal adherent. Mrs Meir’s outstanding achievement as Foreign Minister was undoubtedly the relationship she built with the newly emergent states in Africa, with whom Israel felt a close affinity. It was largely held at the time that the United States’ sharp reaction to the Sinai campaign was motivated, among other things, by the effect on peoples who had just thrown off the shackles of colonialism. Mrs Meir therefore toured these countries
and created friendships with them, which owed a good deal to her personal contacts.

  When the excitement of the Sinai campaign and its aftermath had died down, conflicts which had been brewing within Mapai boiled over and scalded, in the process, the harmony which had always existed between Mrs Meir and Mr Ben-Gurion. The clash was between the veterans of the party on one side, and the “younger” element led by Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres on the other. Mrs Meir and those of her generation never forgave Mr Ben-Gurion for completely siding with the younger group. Though Mrs Meir did not carry out the threat she made that she would not serve in Mr Ben-Gurion’s Government after the elections at the end of 1959, she had to swallow her dislikes and accept among her Cabinet colleagues both Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban, with Shimon Peres as Deputy Minister of Defence.

  She had her revenge, however, when the famous “Lavon affair” split the party completely. Mrs Meir led the veterans against Ben-Gurion. Thereafter her strength lay in that leadership, for the party machinery was too tightly held in their hands for them to be dislodged. So much so, that there are many political observers who contend that she was largely responsible for Mr Ben-Gurion’s resignation in 1963. Certainly, she gave her full support to Mr Levi Eshkol as Prime Minister and fought strongly against the group who, with Mr Ben-Gurion at the head, broke away from Mapai and formed their own party, Rafi.

  Shortly afterwards Mrs Meir resigned from the Government and became secretary-general of Mapai. It was the time of perhaps her greatest influence on internal politics. Her power did not diminish even when the split in the party was healed, and it was joined by two other left-wing groups, although she suffered one or two reverses. The most important was that in the emergency of May, 1967, Moshe Dayan was appointed Minister of Defence against her strong opposition. She had wanted Mr Yigal Allon. Nevertheless, before relinquishing her position as secretary of Mapai, which she did shortly before Mr Eshkol’s death, she saw to it that her nominee, Pincus Sapir, took her place, although it meant his giving up the post of Minister of Finance to do so. And she insisted that Mr Yigal Allon be made Deputy Prime Minister. Her retirement, so far as the power she wielded in Mapai affairs was concerned, was only nominal. When Mr Eshkol suddenly died it was therefore almost inevitable that she should take his place. She was at first seen as a compromise choice to avert the otherwise inevitable struggle for the leadership which was expected.

  She was very much a mother-figure as the first Premier, David Ben-Gurion, had been a father-figure; and indeed towards the end of her term of office she was often referred to as “grandmother”. She was thus firmly in control, the matriarch holding her “family” together at a time of great difficulty from without and growing discord within the county and particularly within her own party.

  This reached a climax with the sudden onslaught of war in October, 1973, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The fact emerged that the Israeli armed forces were apparently caught unawares and sustained heavy losses in the first three days, not compensated for by the Israeli gains by the time a halt was called to the fighting.

  The nation was in a turmoil: appeasement was possible only by finding someone to blame.

  It was somewhat ironic that as Prime Minister she was compelled to rely to a great extent on matters of security on her Defence Minister, who was Mr Moshe Dayan: even more so that in the criticism over the war — levelled at both of them and the military leaders — she had publicly to express her support of him.

  In the general elections which followed in December, 1973, her party therefore lost many votes and left her in a weak position to form a new coalition government. She nevertheless persisted and had succeeded, but the inner-party strife reached a new dimension and she resigned, to make way for Mr Yitzhak Rabin, a much younger man, a former Chief of Staff of the armed forces and a former Ambassador to the United States.

  Under Israeli procedure, in the period between the elections till Mr Rabin had formed his government and obtained a parliamentary vote of confidence in it, the outgoing government remained as a “caretaker”. Mrs Meir was thus still Prime Minister and led the negotiations with Dr Kissinger which resulted in the disengagement of Egyptian-Israeli troops in Sinai, and Syrian-Israeli troops in the Golan Heights: the crowning achievement of her political career, immediately after which, in June 1974, she retired.

  She was without doubt the voice of the majority of her people in those negotiations: tough enough to wrest the best terms possible, flexible enough to give way when the limit was reached.

  Her strength lay in her total single-mindedness. For her the cause of the Jewish people, their right to territory won in wars they saw as forced upon them, their claim to sovereignty, independence and security, were so self-evident that she was able to present them with perfect conviction and unequivocalness, possible only to someone uninhibited by even a glance at the other side. She was, at the same time, intolerant of any slight, explicit or implicit, against her people.

  When she made history by being the first Israeli Prime Minister, or leader, to be received by the Pope, she entered with due reverence, and remarked beforehand: “That I, the daughter of Moshe Mabovitch, a carpenter, should call on the Pope!” But in the interview itself, she reacted very sharply when the Pope told her he was surprised that the Jews who had suffered so much should act so fiercely to the Arabs: “When we were homeless and merciful”, she declared to His Holiness, “we were led to the gas chambers!” It was this kind of “talking straight from the shoulder” which endeared her to fellow Jews and won her disciples.

  Her obvious honesty and straightforwardness, devoid of guile or dissembling, earned her the respect of foreign politicians with whom she came into contact. Though outwardly severe looking, her face reflecting the strains and stresses through which she had lived her whole life, she was inwardly warm-hearted, compassionate and even sentimental.

  Her passing ends an era for Israel, for she is the last of the group which, as the executive of the World Zionist Movement, led the transition of the Jewish settlement in Palestine into a sovereign State, and then led that State as its Government. Their outlook, and even policies, were influenced by their own experiences in their countries of origin, of anti-Semitism and persecution. They fled from these to find hostility and hardship in their ancient homeland. But they had the exaltation of reaching in their lifetime the goal of Statehood which they had set for themselves: they were tough, granite-hard and uncompromising. They were in the forefront in the battle for the rebirth of a nation, in overcoming economic crises and winning four wars; and during that time immigration continued on a massive scale and the development of Israel raced on at a spectacular rate. They set a pace it will be difficult to match, impossible to increase, by the new generation, either Israeli-born or almost entirely Israeli-bred, who have already taken over completely.

  Among those older leaders Golda Meir has an honoured place: her role was vital and she gave the whole of herself to it. She was at the same time one of the masses and yet their leader. Mrs Meir, whose autobiography, My Life, was published in Britain in 1975, celebrated her 80th birthday in May, 1978, but was in hospital three times during the following autumn.

  Golda Meir, Israel’s first woman Prime Minister, was born on May 3, 1898. She died on December 8, 1978, aged 80

  Editor’s note: Mrs Meir died while publication of The Times was suspended; this obituary appeared in The Times Obituaries Supplement almost a year later.

  DAME GRACIE FIELDS

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  FORMER MILL GIRL WHOSE FINE VOICE AND SENSE OF FUN LED HER TO BE A PRE-EMINENT ENTERTAINER ON STAGE, RECORD AND FILM

  NOVEMBER 23, 1979 (The Times Obituaries Supplement)

  Dame Gracie Fields, DBE, who died on September 27, at the age of 81, was perhaps the most popular entertainer of the day. She was, moreover, one of those few who are able to step beyond the strict limits of their profession and become a national figure. To many thousands of people who never saw her “Our Gra
cie” was a beloved character, the very embodiment of that fairy-tale quality in our age which allowed a poor mill girl to rise, by talent, personality and character, above the circumstances of her birth to astonishing heights of success.

  Born at Rochdale, Lancashire, on January 9, 1898, her real name was Grace Stansfield, and she was only eight when she first sang in a local cinema. She used also to sing outside the lodgings of music hall performers in the hope of attracting their attention, but the only engagement she got in this way was one to assist an artiste by singing choruses from the gallery. The child’s efforts to do so were, however, promptly suppressed by a woman sitting near her, who did not realize that she was part of the show. Later she danced and sang with Haley’s Juveniles — long a famous troupe of children on the music halls — and in 1912 with Cherburn’s Young Stars. In 1913 she made her first appearance as a single turn, and the following year, at Oldham, played in her only pantomime. If she could not obtain theatrical engagements she worked, at this period, in a cotton mill, a shop, or a paper-bag factory, and when in 1915 she joined a touring revue her mother told her that if she did not then “make good” she would have to go back to the mill as a permanency — a fate which happily for the world she avoided. Her first revue was Yes, I Think So, which was produced at Hulme, Manchester, early in 1915, and in July of that year paid a visit to the Middlesex Music Hall, in Drury Lane, where Gracie Fields made her first London appearance.