Customer Reviews

Golda

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I heard the author discuss this book on my local NPR station. GOlda had always fascinated me so I purchased the book. I have almost finished it. It is very readable. GOlda was a complex woman, fiercely devoted to Israel, much to the detriment of her family. She was probably Israel's number one fund raiser, which enabled the country to assimilated hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world. Israel was also able to purchase the military hardward needed to defend itself against its hostile neighbors. She was the first woman head of state in the western world. Although she was flawed she managed to hold Israel together in trying times. I loved this book.

From Kenneth Ellman, Newton, New Jersey, 07860, ke@kennethellman.com
This is a well done and very readable book about one of the most important leaders of Israel and one of the most accomplished female political leaders anywhere, ever.
The fact that Golda Meir was born in Russia in abysmal poverty as many of our families were in the time of the Czar, then emigrated to and lived in the United States and worked as a school teacher in Milwaukee and then later became the Prime Minister of Israel should be beyond any one book to fully capture. However this author Elinor Burkett has successfully accomplished a reasonable and comfortable presentation of history recreating the place of Israel and the Jewish people and the life, role and participation of Golda Meir. It appears the documentation and research is carefully done.

Many of us remember Golda Meir because we lived during her time of conflict, most memorably the extraordinary 1973 war when Israel and the Jewish people were faced with tests and choices of the greatest danger and risk. When the then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was unable to function and became incompetent (to this day I do not understand what happened to the mind of Dayan at that time) somehow this "Ich bin a Yiddischer tochter", who had become Prime Minister of Israel a land in perpetual war, was able to lead the Country and People. There are many extraordinary events, which although previously known are again recounted in this book. Some of them may bring you to tears.
The story of the visits by Golda Meir as the then Ambassador to the Soviet Union from Israel, to the Choral Synagogue in Moscow during the time of the Stalin terror can leave you dazed. Tears and tears of joy are the memory of those Soviet Jews that haunts you. During one of her visits Golda Meir cried out "Thank you for having remained Jews". As is well known the Jews paid a heavy price for having done so. By the way the above quote "Ich bin a Yiddischer tochter" was from the wife of the Soviet Foreign Minister as one of the last words spoken to Golda Meir before Minister Molotov's wife was taken away and exiled to Kazakhstan.

This is a worthy and useful biography of a significant woman who accomplished many things and showed great leadership and courage in defense of her people whom I believe she loved.
It is unfortunate that political figures like her are all too uncommon in any country.
There is much to commend this book as an introduction to times and places not that long ago yet which are all too easily forgotten. It is very easy to understand, follow and enjoy. You will not want to put it down.
Kenneth Ellman, Newton, New Jersey 07860, ke@kennethellman.com

Elinor Burkett's bold and immaculately researched biography of the late Golda Meir is a captivating read, from start to finish. Part history, part adventure, this is a candid and "warts and all" look at the woman whose influence and personality helped shape a nation and still weilds influence in 21st Century world politics.

When I got this book, I was hoping for a personal look at Golda, the person. Having read it, I feel I learned more about Israel's long complicated history than about Golda as a person. Maybe that is because the woman did not have much of a personal life and her story was tied to that of her country. She lived and breathed politics and the book's lengthy description of Israeli politics (with countless parties and coalitions) is confusing and doesn't tell us much about her.

It is as though the author couldn't find enough information about Golda's private life (which Golda guarded) and so the book becomes a history lesson in Israeli and Mid-East politics. No maps included which would have helped the reader a great deal in understanding some of this stuff.

The author should have gotten more material from Golda's children, who didn't think much of Golda as a mother (she was MIA when it came to parenting).

Time to read: It took me a little more than a week (with a lot of free time)

I have NOT read Burkett's biography, but I notice many of the commenters on Amazon expressing a wish for a more personal account of Golda Meir's life. Well her autobiography, "My Life," is intensely personal. She has a clear and moving voice, and her description of her private tribulations as well as the early events of Israel's history is fantastic and, actually, inspirational.

You will have to buy a used copy of My Life since it is out of print (or visit the library), but it's well worth the effort.

I learned a lot about the history of Israel and the plight of Jews through Golda.

Golda Meir-the redoubtable mother of modern Israel- was a great woman leader in the tradition of the Prophetess Deborah, Boudicca and Queen Elizabeth I of England. She was a great patriot and visionary dedicated to building, serving and defending her nation and people. Elinor Burkett has written a well researched, highly readable and interesting biography.
It's one main flaw however is that the author gives too critical an appraisal of the basis Golda's strong leadership- a determination that never again will Israel fall and the Jewish people be defenseless and at the mercy of their enemies.
When outsiders sneered that Golda had 'the Masada complex' she responded "It is true that we have a Masada complex. We also have a Hitler complex. We also have a pogrom complex".

Israel was re-established in the shadow of the Holocaust, and hundreds of thousands it's first citizens were Holocaust survivors. Israel , fighting for survival since it's rebirth, has always lived in the shadow of genocide and a second Holocaust.
In the last ten years in particular, Israel has been desperately fighting for her life, with so much of the world determined to hound her out of existence. With Israel's six million Jews comprising the world's largest Jewish community, and 40% of world Jewry, Jewish survival is still the issue. Israel's people face a second Holocaust on two fronts. On one front Israel is faced with a nuclear attack by Iran whose Hitlerite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has constantly vowed to 'wipe Israel off the map' with the vast nuclear arsenal he is building up. Israel can no longer rely on the support of the USA with Barack Obama having redirected American foreign policy towards the Islamist Axis, with an adversarial attitude to Israel.

Israel is also under to pressure to accept into it's borders millions of hate-filled Arabs bent on the destruction of her people, under the fraud of the so-called 'Palestinian right of return' and with this artificially created Arab majority, to accept an imposed one-state Rwanda solution whereby Israel's Jews would be a helpless minority and be subject to Rwanda style massacres.

Golda never wavered in her commitment to Jewish self-determination and independence in the Land of Israel. As she told the workers committee of the Hisdatrut (Israel national workers union) in 1946, after the British government had betrayed pre-state Israel's Jews: "Jewish life is precious but we do not want to be slaves to another nation...not only because every man wants to be free in his own country but because we have learned that for Jews living as a minority in someone else's nation is not real life and in the end in that position we would be killed...We need freedom to be independent".

Golda was the President of the Socialist International for many years. She was more popular during the 1960s and early 1970s in Britain and Europe than any leaders of those countries.
As Foreign minister of Israel in the 1960s Golda headed Israel's development and aid program in Africa. Israel became intimately involved with many of Africa's national liberation movements during the 1960s. Israel-now excoriated with the evil lies from Islamist, nihilist and Stalinist propaganda that it is a 'racist'. 'colonial' and 'apartheid' oppressor- served as a model during late 1950s to early 70s for post colonial Africa. Israel embarked on massive training programs in health, infrastructure, water, communications and education, among other things, and injected massive aid into Africa.
Golda herself despised racism and when visiting Zambia, the tour bus she was on was about to cross over into the then Rhodesia to see the Victoria Falls, the Rhodesian officials requested that only the white people on the bus could disembark, Golda exclaimed that she could do without the Victoria Falls and did not see them.

In 1973, most African countries, under Arab and Soviet pressure broke ties with Israel, in the wake of the cowardly Arab attack on Israel that led to the Yom Kippur War.
Whether leading her people in the struggle against British colonial tyranny, representing her nation diplomatically (she referred in the wake of the Yom Kippur war to the United Nations as 'that high court of injustice'), the fight against terrorism or her commitment to social justice, Golda led with force of character and commitment which is inspiring today!

I ordered this for my daughter for Christmas. Since she requested the book, I am sure she will enjoy it.