Lioness

Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel

By: Francine Klagsbrun

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin

Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation.

Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life. A series of public service jobs brought her to the attention of David Ben-Gurion, and her political career took off.

Fund-raising in America in 1948, secretly meeting in Amman with King Abdullah right before Israel's declaration of independence, mobbed by thousands of Jews in a Moscow synagogue in 1948 as Israel's first representative to the USSR, serving as minister of labor and foreign minister in the 1950s and 1960s, Golda brought fiery oratory, plainspoken appeals, and shrewd deal-making to the cause to which she had dedicated her life - the welfare and security of the State of Israel and its inhabitants.

As prime minister, Golda negotiated arms agreements with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and had dozens of clandestine meetings with Jordan's King Hussein in the unsuccessful pursuit of a land-for-peace agreement with Israel's neighbors. But her time in office ended in tragedy, when Israel was caught off guard by Egypt and Syria's surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973.

Analyzing newly available documents from Israeli government archives, Francine Klagsbrun looks into whether Golda could have prevented that war and whether in its darkest days she contemplated using nuclear force. Resigning in the war's aftermath, she spent her final years keeping a hand in national affairs and bemusedly enjoying international acclaim. Klagsbrun's superbly researched and masterly recounted story of Israel's founding mother gives us a Golda for the ages.

©2017 Francine Klagsbrun (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A thorough and absorbing examination of the woman and her role in Zionism and Israel. Lioness wrests Meir from the shadow of the Yom Kippur War and presents her life and career as a lens to examine Israel's challenges-borders, settlements, occupation, terror, and the social and ethnic divide between Jews of European origin and those of Middle Eastern origin." (Ethan Bronner, The New York Times Book Review)

So Inspiring!

I love how this was read! I felt like I was hearing Golda herself. Her life was a powerful look at the creation of Israel! She’s a hero in my heart! Well written, well read!

Review of Lioness

I binge listened to this audio book, as it was hard to put down!!! Bang up job!!!💁🏾‍♀️🙌🏾

Great

A great story of an amazing person from both a personal and professional perspective. It helps one also to understand Israel’s political environment.

Terrific story, terrible narration

I found it difficult to listen to the narrators rote, monotonous tone. She might as well have Been reading off her grocery shopping list. Great story but very hard to truly get lost and involved because if this flaw. Over and over again I had to rewind because I found my mind drifting. This is one book I should’ve read instead of listening to an audible

Thorough and exhilarating

I had read "My Life" and had been recommended this book. I was sceptical at first about it but after listening to it I feel that I got to know Golda Meir so much better as well as the context of Israeli history. Not 100% and certainly a loving portrayal but one can't expect perfect in anything. It was long but worth it.
Something which made me CRAZY was the narrator's utter lack of understanding of the pronunciation of names and places and words in Hebrew. It was very distracting and an important detail when dealing with text relating to a foreign culture and something basic in the preparation for narrating such an important text.