A Life for Israel by Arnold Dobrin

First published: 1974; illustrated

Subjects: Activists, military leaders, and politicians

Type of work: Biography

Time of work: 1903-1974

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Pinsk, Russia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Palestine (later Israel)

Principal Personages:

• Golda Mabowitz (later Golda Meir), an independent and strong girl and woman
• Mrs. Mabowitz, her mother
• Mr. Mabowitz, her father, who wants a better life for his family
• Shana, Golda’s older sister, a dedicated Zionist
• Morris Myerson, Golda’s husband, a Zionist with a great love for the arts
• David Ben-Gurion, the chief of the Jewish Agency in Palestine and later the first prime minister of Israel
• Menahem, the son of Golda and Morris, a cellist
• Sarah, the daughter of Golda and Morris, a kibbutznik
• Moshe Dayan, the Israeli minister of defense

Form and Content

A Life for Israel: The Story of Golda Meir was the first biography of Meir written for this age group. It covers the time from her birth until 1974, just after her retirement as prime minister of Israel. Each of the eleven chapters is brief; the longest is slightly more than seven pages long. The text is illustrated with nineteen black-and-white photographs that provide important information, especially for children who have no idea what an overloaded refugee ship looks like or how hard it is living in a tent camp. Two photographs of the Merhavia kibbutz, one showing barren ground in the 1940’s and the other showing a lush oasis after years of hard work, are especially interesting. Also included is a chronology, a bibliography for further reading, and an index.

The story begins with the Mabowitz family living under religious persecution in Russia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Golda’s father sets out for a better life in America, and his family rejoins him in Milwaukee after he has started a business. Golda grows up listening to discussions by Zionists, who want to create a Jewish homeland, and runs away from home at fourteen to work with them. She marries Morris Myerson, and they move to Palestine to work on a kibbutz. Now known as Golda Meir, she becomes more politically active and effectively leaves her family behind as she rises in power. After decades of struggle, Israel becomes a nation, a Jewish homeland, and eventually Meir becomes its prime minister, leading the young nation through the Yom Kippur attacks of 1973.

Meir’s life is illustrative of several important issues for young social studies students. It is the story of an immigrant family trying to find a better life in America, of a strong and independent woman in a man’s world, and of an important series of events in Jewish history. Arnold Dobrin has a good sense of his audience and the special demands of young readers. Thus, he pauses to define terms such as “pogrom” and “kibbutz” and to identify historical figures such as Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, and Moshe Dayan. He also chooses not to use a distant, reportorial tone but instead to dramatize and fictionalize. He presents conversations around the dinner table, private discussions between Meir and her husband, and an appeal from a friend. The book opens, in its one departure from chronological order, with a breathless five-year-old Golda running to tell her mother that the Cossacks are coming. The reader knows from the first sentence that this biography will be told in something resembling a novel form.

Dobrin wrote with the full cooperation of Clara Stern, Meir’s younger sister. Stern reviewed the manuscript, supplied her own memories and insights, contributed a celebratory preface, and provided family photographs, including rare glimpses of the Mabowitz family. Her cooperation lends authority to Dobrin’s story and also adds to the feeling that this biography is an impassioned one—that does not simply report on a great woman but adulates her, that does not objectively describe a series of conflicts but pushes the reader toward an interpretation of them. While there is no such thing as truly objective writing, in this book the author’s sentiments come through unusually strongly and clearly.

Critical Context

A Life for Israel was important at the time of its publication, largely for being the first biography of Golda Meir for this age group. The book appeared shortly after Meir’s retirement in 1974, when the world’s attention was focused on her and when the United States was coming to respect the contributions women have made to national and international history. The book became immediately popular as a tool for helping explain to young people the incendiary politics of the Middle East and for celebrating the contributions of intelligent and strong women. More than two decades later, as schools acted on a new call for multicultural studies, a book such as this one that offers Jewish history and culture and a strong female central character found renewed demand.

Although A Life for Israel is no longer in print, it remains on the shelves of many public and school libraries. Its approach seems old-fashioned to some, but Arnold Dobrin’s scholarship remains unquestionable. Although A Life for Israel may have been replaced in some classrooms by the more objectively toned (and somewhat easier to read) Our Golda: The Story of Golda Meir (1984), by David A. Adler, the passion of this work, the index and bibliography, and the irreplaceable photographs make it invaluable for students and teachers alike who seek a jumping-off place for further study.