Golda by Elinor Burkett Read Free Book Online Page A

exist at all.”
    Undaunted, Golda set out to convert Morris, penning him dozens of letters about the bravery of the Jewish pioneers in Palestine and pleading
    with him to at least agree to a trip there. “Yes, Gogole, I shall even con- sider a trip to Palestine (or the North Pole for that matter) with you,” he replied indulgently. “But why we need go there now I don’t know. We shall roll there, cost prepaid, after we have died of some Latin disease and been buried under four ft. of sod. As to that group of ‘idealists’—why, you need not envy them. Six weeks of struggle with the virgin soil will cure them of their ‘idealism’ permanently.”
    Assuming that Golda would grow out of her Palestine fascination, Morris continued to write long letters about the world they had shared in Colorado, critiquing performances of Wagner’s Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla and describing his research in zoology and paleontology. Golda replied excitedly with news about the revival of Hebrew in Palestine. Nei- ther seemed to notice the growing disconnect.
    Zionism consumed Golda’s every waking moment. Asked to join Poale’s Executive Committee, she threw herself into organizing their annual fund- raiser for pioneers in Palestine. On weekends, she and her friends held pic- nics at Lincoln Park, auctioning off packed lunches to raise money for their folkschule.
    In the United States, Zionism had attracted the energies of few young people, and even fewer who were both female and moderately American. Golda, then, who never powdered her nose or donned a flapper outfit, became a rising star in that tiny universe, news of her celebrity traveling well beyond Milwaukee. “There was a rumor afloat that there was a koo- koo girl who was barnstorming for Labor Zionism in Milwaukee,” re- called Judy Shapiro, whose father, Ben, was an activist in Chicago. “ Meshugenah Myrtle, (crazy Myrtle), they called her.”
    By the time Morris finally found a way to free himself from his family and move to Milwaukee, Golda was basking in the attention, the plau- dits, and the energy. Morris and Zionism, she was about to have it all. Shrewdly, at first she carved out plenty of time for them to fall back into their old routine. She and Morris read together, went to the opera and symphony. In the summer, they took the trolley to Bradford Beach or strolled through Lake Park with a basket lunch.
    But as Morris settled in, working occasional jobs as a painter, Golda was constantly caught between him and her passion for Zionism, which he stubbornly refused to share. The two collided dramatically when the first important pioneers from Palestine arrived in Milwaukee as part of a thirty-city tour. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion were scheduled to address a public meeting on a Saturday night and have lunch at the Mabovitch house the next day. Golda was dying to hear their speeches, but Morris had already bought tickets for a concert by the Chicago Phil- harmonic. “I just didn’t have the courage to say that I would not go to the concert,” Golda explained. After all, she knew that she’d meet them the next day. But Ben-Gurion canceled the lunch because “somebody who could not come to listen to him speak is not deserving of having him as a guest.”
    Abashed, Golda vowed never to be unworthy again. She dropped out of teachers’ college. What was the point of preparing for a career when she would soon join a collective farm in Palestine? The mounting reports of the hardships and dangers facing young Zionists there only made the prospect more tantalizing. Craving release from the anger and humilia- tion she’d felt facing Cossacks, Golda imagined herself fighting off the fellahin, the Arab peasants, and striking a blow for Jewish indepen- dence.
    “The truth is that I didn’t have exact information, but I knew very clearly what I wanted,” Golda recalled years later. “My mind is not so complicated.”
    Unfortunately, Morris’ was. He was