Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin was a key Israeli military and political leader. Born in Jerusalem in 1922, Rabin earned a degree from an agricultural college and joined the elite Palmach forces that fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He became chief of staff and led the army during the stunning Israeli victory in the 1967 war.

Rabin was the Israeli ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973. After returning to Israel, he ran for the Knesset on the Labor Party ticket. He vied with his rival Shimon Peres for the position of prime minister after Golda Meir’s government fell and defeated Peres for the leadership position.

Rabin served as prime minister from 1974 to 1977 and was instrumental in rebuilding the army after the 1973 war (Yom Kippur War). He also signed the initial disengagement agreement with Egypt over the Sinai Peninsula. Following reports of his wife having had, under Israeli law, an illegal bank account in the United States, Rabin stepped down as prime minister.

For much of his military career, Rabin was a hard-liner with regard to the Palestinians and Arab nations. He advocated the use of strong force to crush the Palestinian Intifada when it erupted in the Occupied Territories (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) in 1987. Rabin was again elected prime minister in 1992.

Following protracted secret negotiations, he agreed to the 1993 Oslo accords and signed a much-publicized agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), represented by Yasir Arafat, in a ceremony hosted by then president Bill Clinton on the White House lawn. Under the agreement the Israelis agreed to a gradual pullout from selected portions of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for full recognition by the PLO.

The agreement was opposed by both Israeli and Palestinian extremists and hard-liners. In 1994 Rabin signed a peace treaty with King Hussein of Jordan, with whom—in contrast to Arafat—he had cordial relations. Rabin was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize along with Peres and Arafat.

Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli fanatic who opposed the settlement with the Palestinians, in 1995. The assassination shocked Israeli society but it also reflected the deep divisions within Israel over the exchange of peace for land.

Golda Meir - Israeli Politician

Golda Meir - Israeli Politician

Known for most of her life as Goldie Mabovitch, Golda Meir spent her formative years in Kiev, Ukraine, where pogroms and anti-Semitism plagued her life. Golda’s only memories of this time were of being afraid, hungry, and cold.

Tired of their lives in Kiev, the Mabovitch family moved to Byelorussia in 1903 and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1906. Upon graduation as valedictorian from ingusan high school, Meir pleaded with her parents to allow her to attend high school and become a teacher.

At 14 she ran away from home to live with her sister in Denver. She attended high school and worked at a restaurant, where she overheard debates about Zionism, anarchism, socialism, and suffrage. Meir met Morris Meirson in 1915, and they moved back to Wisconsin so she could finish high school.

With her parents’ support she enrolled in Wisconsin’s normal school for teaching in 1916 and taught Yiddish the following year. Meir and Meirsen married in 1917, and she began working with the Poalei Tzion movement.


Meir and Morris then moved to Palestine. Their first child was born in 1924. That same year Meir was elected as an officer of Histadrut, where she met influential Zionists including David Ben-Gurion, with whom she would be professionally connected for much of her career. She was elected secretary of the Women’s Labor Council in 1928 and separated from her husband; however, they never officially divorced.

Meir helped found Mapai, Israel’s major labor party, which led every coalition government for the first three decades of its existence. In the mid-1930s Meir was elected to the executive board of Histadrut, became the fundraiser for the Jewish Agency, and was elected as the head of the agency’s Political Department.

Following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, Ben-Gurion appointed Meir as Israel’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. Unhappy to leave the newly established Israel, she returned and was appointed minister of labor and national insurance, in which post she remained until 1956.

She adopted the Hebrew name Golda Meir. As foreign minister from 1956 to 1966, she attempted to build bridges with the emerging independent countries in Africa via an assistance agenda based on Israel’s nation-building experience.

Diagnosed with cancer in 1963, Meir retired from the Knesset; however, her retirement was short-lived. Supportive of the Mapai Party merger and multiparty alignment, she was elected secretary general of the coalition in 1966. When Prime Minister Eshkol died in 1969, Golda Meir became the world’s third female prime minister.

Combining idealism and practicality, Meir led a full professional and personal life. She dedicated her career to leading Israel’s struggle in survival and peace. Both of these objectives were thwarted when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel during Yom Kippur in 1973.

Meir was blamed for overestimating the strength of the Israel Defense Forces and misjudging the surrounding Arab countries’ intentions. In 1974 she resigned and during the following four years worked on her autobiography and spent time with her family until her death in 1978.