To the world, she was the tough-as nails Israeli prime minister. To Alice Golembo, she was sweet “Aunt Goldie,” who made matzah brei and liked to hear about her great-niece’s boyfriends.
“She was swell,” says Golembo, an actress living in New Jersey. “She was very loving and giving and generous and seemed to have all the time in the world for us.”
Golembo, 50, will tell stories of her great-aunt at Israel Bonds’ Golda Meir Club luncheon on Tuesday, June 8 in San Francisco. The club honors people who have purchased bonds of $5,000 or more. Longtime Bonds supporters Goldie Abers and Golda Kaufman will be honored at the event.
Golembo’s mother, Judith, was the daughter of Meir’s older sister Shayna.
Growing up on the East Coast, Golembo saw her aunt often. As Israel’s foreign minister from 1956 to ’66, Meir traveled to New York or Washington, D.C., nearly every month. “Every time she would come, we would see her,” Golembo says.
But it was later, as a young adult, that Golembo truly got to know her renowned aunt. In 1972, Golembo went to live and work in Israel and ended up staying five years. During her first year there, she stayed with her aunt — in the prime minister’s residence.
Despite the grandiose surroundings, it took a while for her aunt’s stature to fully sink in.
“My parents never emphasized who Golda was in the world,” says Golembo, on the phone from her office at the New Jersey Symphony, where she works in the development department. “They felt it was very important that whenever we got together, she was just Aunt Golda. There was no pomp and circumstance.”
Once in Israel, where she worked in Israeli theater and film, Golembo quickly got a sense of just how famous her aunt was.
“After I had been there for several days, I accompanied her to a concert,” Golembo recalls. “The entire auditorium stood and started applauding her and calling out ‘Golda, Golda.’ That’s when it really hit me. I realized who she was to the rest of the world.”
She may have been a figure on the world stage, but Meir remained down-to-earth and approachable, says her niece, who was integrally involved in the development of the Broadway play “Golda.”
“Golda was never a formal, forbidding person,” she says. “The man on the street called her Golda. She was Golda to everyone, not just me.”
When Golembo lived with her aunt, Meir’s cabinet ministers came by the house regularly. Sometimes Golembo made them coffee.
“The doorbell would ring and in would troop the defense minister and the communication minister,” Golembo recalls. “They would sit in the kitchen and decide the fate of Israel.”
Big business may have taken place in the prime minister’s house. But the leader didn’t let politics seep into her personal life, according to her niece.
“Golda consciously separated her family life from her political life,” Golembo says. “There was no crossover. Even following the Yom Kippur War, when Golda was going through a pretty trying time, it was never table conversation among the family.”
Golembo fondly recalls quiet time spent with her aunt when the pair lived together in the prime minister’s residence.
“If she did not have a meeting in the evening, she would leave me a note in the morning saying, ‘Can we please have dinner together?’ We would always have a cup of tea in the evening, at least.”
Meir, who died in 1978, placed great emphasis on kin, says Golembo, who attributes her own attachment to family, in part, to her aunt. “She ended up separating from her husband and with the greatest regret. I think maybe as a result of her own marriage failing, she really realized the importance of family.”
Born in Russia in 1898, Meir immigrated to Milwaukee with her family as a child and settled in Palestine in 1921. It was Golembo’s grandmother Shayna, Golembo says, who inspired Meir to move there.
“Shayna was the true Zionist and socialist,” Golembo says. “However, she wasn’t a very strong person physically. She had tuberculosis. She knew she could never live in Palestine.”
Shayna always knew her sister would be a political star, Golembo says. Unfortunately, stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, Shayna never fully grasped her sister’s successes.
Had she been aware of Meir’s ascendance, Shayna undoubtedly would have been proud. “She was Golda’s mentor,” Golembo says. “She was Golda’s everything.”